Clean Water Action’s ReThink Disposable team is excited to have received the Bow and Arrow award from the California Product Stewardship Council (CPSC). This award recognizes our program’s mission to bring together stakeholders in the restaurant industry to reduce the consumption of harmful single-use plastics. Creative partnerships are at the heart of our work and we are honored by this recognition. We will continue to build collaborative relationships to shift communities away from disposable foodware so we can tackle the plastic waste crisis and preserve water quality for future generations.
“Bow & Arrow recipients demonstrate synergistic relationships between producers, distributors, retailers, public agencies, and other stakeholders. Through ReThink Disposable’s advocacy, we’ve seen important collaboration firsthand and are proud to recognize the organization for incredible efforts building coalitions to reduce single-use plastic waste generation and promote reusables.” -California Product Stewardship Council
Other category winners this year include Refill Madness (Sacramento), Sierra Nevada Brewing Co and Sirius Signal. Past recipients include zero-waste leaders from all over the state and can be read about here.
In addition to the award, ReThink is also excited to announce changes to our team. Grace Lee has stepped into the role of Program Director, while Vanessa Pope and Ariel Fournier have joined the team as Associates to lead business engagement and provide expert advice on zero-packaging. You can read more about the team below.
Grace Lee joined Clean Water Fund's ReThink Disposable program team in 2018 and is now the Program Director. Ms. Lee has worked throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles region to implement circular reuse systems anywhere there's food packaging including restaurants, cafes, froyo shops, schools, catering businesses, and even yacht clubs. Before working with Clean Water, Ms. Lee was the Outreach Programs Director at The Bay Foundation, a National Estuary Program charged with restoring Santa Monica Bay. Ms. Lee has over 14 years of experience in resource conservation, public engagement, partnership building, and orchestrating projects centered around water quality improvement and behavioral change. Grace holds a bachelor's degree in Applied Ecology from the University of California, Irvine, Master's Degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Southern California, a Certificate in Sustainability from UCLA's Extension Program, and is a current horticulture and permaculture student at Merritt College. In her free time, Grace is planning her permaculture paradise somewhere off-grid and is obsessively eliminating plastic from her home.
Vanessa Pope is excited to join the ReThink team to work directly with food service businesses on the important work of phasing out single-use plastics from food serviceware. Vanessa is an educator by profession, with degrees from Harvard (Visual/Environmental Studies) and USC (Education Administration); she has lived in France, Somaliland, Los Angeles, New York, Princeton, and rural Wisconsin. Her book about sustainability, “15 Minute First Dates”, is meant to help people restructure their lives with the planet in mind. In her book, Vanessa asks readers to: “Fall in love. . .with the planet”. With For Here, Please (her non-profit) and MudLab (her zero-waste cafe/grocery), she hopes to help people give up single-use plastics in day-to-day life. You can read more about her projects here: https://www.mudlaboak.com/.
Ariel Fournier, the newest member of the ReThink Disposable team, is a Bay Area based food enthusiast, artist and crafter specializing in using recycled materials to promote waste reduction. She has been involved in all facets of the food service industry from the age of 14 and is excited to combine her love of food, customer service experience and eliminating waste through the ReThink Disposable program in addition to her work with Clean Water Action in Oakland. As a California native who was raised near Yosemite, she has a deep appreciation for nature. When she's not exploring the outdoors via hiking, backpacking, kayaking and bouldering, she enjoys freestyle dance and practices yoga regularly. She loves to travel and experience new places and cultures through their cuisine. A firm believer in "Wherever you may go, go with all your heart" - a philosophy she applies to all areas of her life.
Keep up to date by following these Instagram accounts!
- @calpsc
- @cleanh2oaction
- @thefutureisreusable
