Who we are:
Reimagined Recycling is a non-profit in Pittsburgh, PA.
Our mission is to make material sustainability and recycling transparent and accessible. Through art, craft, and education we hope to help create a local recycling system that is easy to understand and to promote more sustainable living and a healthy environment.
What we do:
Our name says it best — we aim to reimagine recycling. Through community education, the collection of local single-use plastics, and their recrafting into beautiful and reusable goods to last a lifetime — we aim to inspire change, not just in the way we consume plastic, but also in the way we reuse it.
Why #5s? We primarily work with #5 plastics because they’re hard-to-recycle plastics. At a time when most of our local recycling pick-ups aren’t taking #5s, we want to give our community an option to rethink how they handle them.
Board & Staff
Staff
Executive Director
Ashley McFarland
Studio Coordinator
Anna Dzuricky
Anna began at Reimagined Recycling in August 2025 after leaving the engineering industry where she most recently designed firefighting garments and equipment. She now operates her own sustainable fabric business - Dizzy Bananas - where she ~reimagines~ fabric... a foil for what she does with plastic at Reimagined Recycling as studio coordinator. Anna moved from Erie to Pittsburgh over 10 years ago for school, and has stayed for the incredible community, opportunities, and neighborly love found in the city!
Retail & Media Coordinator
Freddie
Board
President
Sarah Thurston
Sarah is an avid reader, loves the outdoors, traveling (especially to National Parks!), and volunteering at various community organizations with her husband and teenage son. She has been a life-long recycling and reuse advocate, can often be seen digging recyclables out of the trash (anywhere and everywhere), and is so happy to be a part of the Reimagined Recycling Board.
Treasurer
Stephen Wludarski
Stephen is the program manager for the National Consortium for Teaching About Asia and the Japan Studies Program at the University of Pittsburgh’s Asian Studies Center at the University Center for International Studies. His passion for reuse and recycling grew from his time living abroad in Japan, where he saw how other societies tackled the problem of plastic waste through education and a waste management system oriented towards resource conservation. As a native of Pittsburgh, Stephen aims to bring his passion, experiences, and expertise to help the folks in our region better understand the types of plastic materials around us, how they can be reprocessed, and together re-imagine a future where we recycle more than we throw away.
Brandon Barber
Brandon is a designer, engineer, and educator focused on product development and prototyping. He runs a product development lab where students design and build new technologies, including robots, medical devices, and research tools. His work centers on creative problem-solving, rapid prototyping, and using design and engineering as tools for learning and innovation.
Alyssa Kail
Alyssa is an artist currently based in Braddock, PA. She works as co-founder of Camp Copeland Studio with her husband Drew Kail, established in 2015, and as a curator, retail and events manager in the arts in Pittsburgh, PA. She is an alum of the MFA Applied Craft + Design program at Pacific Northwest College of Art & Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, OR, and has a BA in Environmental Studies from the University of Pittsburgh.
Sara Dickey
Paige Colao