From city Communications Director Brett Broesder:
This week, Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch honored the owner of Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises, a mattress recycling company, who will be able to create new green jobs due to a mattress recycling law that goes into effect on May 1, 2015.
Passed by the Connecticut General Assembly and signed into law in 2013, An Act Concerning a Mattress Stewardship Program, requires discarded mattresses to be diverted from the solid waste stream to the recycle stream. The increased activity for mattress recycling companies means that Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises will be able to add green jobs.
“In Bridgeport, we’re investing in the future by going green–creating green jobs and producing clean energy so our kids breathe easier,” said Mayor Finch. “Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises, which sits in the heart of Eco-Technology Park–a formerly run-down area of our city that now houses dozens of green businesses–is critical to helping us grow our green economy while combating climate change. Thanks to state legislators and Governor Malloy, this green business will be adding jobs in the near future. It’s a big win for our city and the environment.”
Adrienne Houël, CEO of Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises, says that Mayor Finch and city officials have been very helpful in getting her green business up and running.
“As you know, Mr. Finch is a very green mayor, so being here in Bridgeport helps us to grow. It’s a place where green initiatives are really encouraged.” said Houël. “The City has helped us in all sorts of ways. From CDBG funding, to assistance with obtaining a loan to help get us started. The City of Bridgeport is an example of signing up early and getting started early with mattress recycling. This, of course, is a hallmark and a great example. We are one of the first organizations to move to this area of the City, which has now been designated an Eco-Technology Park. We are very proud to be in it and we hope to bring more and more green technology to this sector.”
Houël stated that the company will be working with Project Longevity, an organization that works closely with matching those re-entering the community after serving time up with employers, to fill new jobs that are created. She also noted that the company added two jobs in preparation for the law change and is looking to fill more jobs as the law goes into effect.
The Green Whore Net is going to get Stung!
Always happy to see business in Bridgeport and with the new law, this company is positioned to thrive, and … Why is there always a catch? Is this really another non-profit!
greenteambpt.com
Did I miss something? How is the City benefiting?
Perhaps the story would be better accepted if told by the operators (who might understand how Bridgeporters benefit is an important part of the message).
I have heard of this over the past two years and understand the direction of mattresses to recycling rather than burning is worthy and helpful in itself in that some revenue stream may be created; I also understood the jobs for men coming out of incarceration were an important part of the program. How many and what compensation levels are missing as info as to what is subsidized and how in the fiscal functioning of the program. Is the site on the Net Taxable Grand List? How much CDBG money is allocated and how many years will a subsidy be required by business plan forecasts? Time will tell.
“In Bridgeport, we’re investing in the future by going green–creating green jobs and producing clean energy so our kids breathe easier,” said Mayor Finch. “Greater Bridgeport Community Enterprises, which sits in the heart of Eco-Technology Park–a formerly run-down area of our city that now houses dozens of green businesses–is critical to helping us grow our green economy while combating climate change. Thanks to state legislators and Governor Malloy, this green business will be adding jobs in the near future. It’s a big win for our city and the environment.”
Bridgeport is green?! For whom?! We host coal-fired power plants, incinerators, construction waste storage/transfer stations, garbage recycling stations, and we take the sewage of communities that in turn usurp our development prerogatives and steal our tax base.
Yes; we’re “green”–for all the suburbs surrounding Bridgeport (but coal-smoke gray and sewage-sludge brown for our own people).
Green jobs? Really? How many? Where do the workers live? What is the compensation level?
I dare say we have hemorrhaged several thousand real jobs during the tenure of the Finch Administration–we’ve seen our Pitney Bowes jobs, and our RBS jobs, as well as many small manufacturing firms exit to Stamford, Shelton and Trumbull.
A real inventory of jobs created and lost during the Finch Administration has never been done by an objective agency. Certainly, the “EcoTecnology Park” hasn’t added as many as two dozen jobs.
And a mattress-recycling company?! We’re so proud to recycle other towns’/states’ waste for a half-dozen low-paying jobs on potentially valuable industrial land!
And we’re going to cover a wooded piece of Bridgeport parkland with power-generation infrastructure to generate electricity for suburban homes and businesses, creating another half-dozen jobs, and that’s green? For whom?
And now, we find out our green mayor is working with our green governor to waste about $1 billion on a road between I-95 and Route 8 that will destroy homes and businesses along Seaview Avenue, waste 60 acres of industrial land as road surface (the GE Boston Avenue property) while it brings thousands of suburban commuter cars to the new Bridgeport train station right past the new Harding High School and brings ruin to Bridgeport’s largest green/forested area and one of the largest urban forests in the country (Remington Woods), and this administration tries to pawn itself off as being “green!”
Green for whom? Not Bridgeporters.
This mayor’s “green” brings only pollution and depleted tax base to Bridgeport–and absolutely no green to Bridgeport pockets.
This mayor’s “green” is only green for the suburban environment and suburban pockets.
This city is in trouble, and getting worse every day. But it is amazing how a slick propaganda machine can convince even people being taxed to death and living in the midst of economic hopelessness and environmental decay they are actually living in “green” prosperity!
And where, as Bridgeporters, do we turn for honest government and economic and environmental relief?
Truly, Bridgeport is a “third world” city that should become a UN mandate. We have no viable leadership options that can surmount the obstacles to arise from within, and we have absolutely no sympathy, or will to intervene, at the state or federal level.
Which way to the Egress, Mr. Barnum?
Adrienne Houël is a Bridgeport hero. This new law will let this mattress biz accelerate. Our university dorms and our hotels/motels now have a way to get rid of junk mattresses and our roadsides will be cleaner when there is a place to easily get rid of old mattresses. The closest before was in Mass. This is good news for a few who need jobs.
In my basement working on a green bedbug spray.
*** The warehouse looks cold with all the workers wearing hats and gloves while promoting the Mayor’s “Think Green Ideas,” along with glowing green bed bugs! Seems like another “political jobs” movement for those who smile and suck up to Mr. Green Jeans, no? ***
So we have an ‘eco-technology park.’ That sounds so high-tech, but in reality is another not-for-profit that does not pay taxes. Maybe ‘gailj2’ also believes that “Arbeit macht frei”–work makes (you) free. More drivel from the ministry of public enlightenment.
So which concentration camp is this motto over this time?