Joan Batory, former coordinator of recycling in Philadelphia, has died at 79
Her legacy includes four decades of environmental activism in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and elsewhere. “Her words and deeds had impact,” a colleague said.
Joan Batory, 79, of Philadelphia, retired coordinator of recycling and solid waste in Philadelphia and Chester County, former director of the Camden County Environmental Commission, onetime regional planning manager for the National Park Service, original member of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, teacher, mentor, and volunteer, died Saturday, July 27, of heart failure at her home.
Mrs. Batory was a popular history teacher at Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden in the late 1960s when environmental inequities she observed in underserved South Jersey communities sharpened her interest in environmental justice, climate solutions, energy conservation, and waste disposal. So she went on to champion environmental sustainability, develop public policy for millions of people, and make substantial changes in everyday life.
She was hired by Chester County officials in 1989 to lead their nascent recycling program, and then-Mayor Ed Rendell brought her to Philadelphia in 1998. “Saving energy is just one of the ways we show our community we care,” Mrs. Batory said in 2017, “and that we’re committed to doing our part to protect the environment and public health, both today and for future generations.”
For nearly a decade in the 1990s, she organized recycling programs, updated waste management procedures, and established enforcement policies for 50 municipalities in Chester County. Her innovative programs, including one that featured garbage-eating worms, won several awards, and recycling advocates flocked to her West Chester office to study her success.
In Philadelphia, from 1998 to 2000, she improved recycling collection schedules and equipment, and expanded door-to-door environmental education outreach and partner programs with city schools and community groups. “Joan took a program that was going in the wrong direction and got it going in the right direction,” Susan Goberski, a program director for Clean Water Action, told The Inquirer in 2000.
She had been director of the Camden County Environmental Commission in the mid-1970s and was appointed a regional planning manager for the National Park Service in 1979. She also served on the New Jersey Pinelands Commission from 1979 to 1985 and helped develop its 1.2 million acres into a biosphere reserve that is recognized by the United Nations.
She created and supported progressive public policy wherever she worked and wrote critical editorials and letters to the editor about government cuts in environmental funding and other issues. “People need help, and agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and our own state environmental agency provide that help,” she said in a 1981 letter to the editor of The Inquirer. “Less government is better? No. Adequate government saves lives.”
In 2009, she established the Green Condominium Initiative in Philadelphia to promote environmental sustainability for large multifamily buildings, and her work at the Philadelphian on the Parkway earned several EnergyStar awards from the EPA.
Mrs. Batory was a longtime Rotary Club member and served as local district governor. She and her husband, Joe, were longtime community liaisons for visiting international scholars through Rotary, and they bequeathed $250,000 to the club’s international peace fellowship program.
“Whether I needed loving, nurturing, counseling, understanding, massaging, or just a good straightening out, Joan has always been there for me,“ her husband said in one of his autobiographical books. “We were truly made for one another.”
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Joan Anne Trybala was born Sept. 2, 1944. She grew up in West Philadelphia and graduated from West Catholic High School for Girls in 1962.
She earned a degree in history at Immaculata College, now Immaculata University, in 1966, and began teaching at Wilson in Camden. She received a fellowship and a master’s degree in environmental studies at Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, in the early 1970s, and focused the rest of her career on public service and education.
She met La Salle College student Joe Batory on a setup through her grandmother and his mother, and they married in 1967, and lived in Audubon, Pennsauken, Drexel Hill, and Philadelphia. They shared interests in education, community service, and Polish history, and were active at the Polish American Cultural Center on Walnut Street.
Mrs. Batory liked to hike and wander through parks, and she and her husband spent many memorable weekends in Ventnor. He said students, colleagues, and volunteers were inspired by her energy, empathy, and kindness.
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In 1999, she needed a kidney, and her brother, Joe, donated one of his. Her husband said: “Joan is the purest, kindest, and most decent person I’ve ever met.”
A longtime friend and colleague said in a tribute: “I’ll just miss being with her.”
In addition to her husband and brother, Mrs. Bartory is survived by other relatives.
A private burial is to be held later.