Taylor Cass Talbott

WIEGO

Taylor works for WIEGO: Women in Informal Employment Globalizing and Organizing, where she coordinates their global Reducing Waste in Coastal Cities project. The project supports the organizing of waste picker associations in ways that maximize marine waste reduction. She has worked at the confluence of waste reduction, labor, and social inclusion for more than a decade, as both a project manager and an artist.

Taylor spent four years developing a zero waste program for the Samdrup Jongkhar Initiative, in SE Bhutan. She also worked for the SWaCH waste picker cooperative in Pune, India, developing their “Red Dot Campaign” to improve sanitary waste management. Taylor began working with waste pickers in 2008 as part of Live Debris, a series of international workshops and art exhibits that she designed to draw attention to social inclusion in the waste sector.

She has a background in environmental studies and a Master’s in Peace and Conflict Resolution. Taylor is currently based in Oregon, USA, where she also works part time for the organization Trash for Peace, supporting the formation of a new waste picker association there called Ground Score. In her free time, she herself picks waste for art and crafts projects.