Read the full article by Lizeth Tello at Sacramento News & Review
At 9 a.m. on a recent Saturday, Sam Mejia moved along the streets of Old Sacramento with a litter picker in hand, scanning the ground near Joe’s Crab Shack. Around her, volunteers in bright orange vests fanned out along the railroad tracks and nearby roads, filling black trash bags piece by piece.
But Mejia isn’t just cleaning up the city.
As the founder of EcoPress Sacramento, she’s turning that trash into something else entirely—melting discarded plastic into jewelry, home goods and art—while building a growing community effort to rethink waste in Sacramento.
EcoPress Sacramento is an upcycling art studio that aims to reduce plastic waste by turning it into homegoods, jewelry and art. The studio transforms collected plastic by melting it down, pressing it and then trimming it into the desired shape.