EPA Awards Grants to Train Environmental Workers
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An Indianapolis-based nonprofit is one of 19 organizations to receive a total of $3.8 million in funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. RecycleForce is set to receive $200,000 to support job training programs.
The EPA says the grants, which are funded through the agency’s Brownfields Job Training Program, provide funding to organizations that are working to create a skilled workforce in communities where “assessment, cleanup, and preparation of brownfield sites for reuse activities are taking place.”
RecycleForce provides electronics recycling services in central Indiana. Additionally, the nonprofit provides provides transitional employment, training and support services to formerly incarcerated individuals.
“The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a better America and that means new, good-paying jobs. The Brownfields Job Training grants announced today will prepare over 1,000 individuals for new environmental jobs like those,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. “This program will directly impact people’s lives, boosting the environmental workforce while helping to transform communities that need it the most.”
The EPA says the selected organizations provide training and offer residents of communities historically affected by environmental pollution, economic disinvestment, and brownfields an opportunity to gain skills and certifications to work in local environmental positions. Certifications include lead and asbestos abatement, hazardous waste operations and emergency response, mold remediation, environmental sampling and analysis, as well as other environmental health and safety training.
Last October, RecycleForce broke ground on a new, 102,000-square-foot headquarters at the former RCA property at Sherman Park in Indianapolis.