The Waste Watchers

A Waste Watcher since age four, “Junkie Jacquie” Ottman has spent the last 25 years showing Fortune 500 companies and the U.S. government how to develop and market products that can meet consumer needs sustainably. READ MORE.

Michelle Cashen recently graduated from Yale with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a concentration in Environmental Studies. She’s freelancing as a Waste Watcher until she finds that perfect green job.

Lorne is the official wehatetowaste.com cartoonist.  Appropriately, he produces these illustrations entirely in digital form on his iPad, saving numerous twigs.  He is also a strategic consultant and owner of Unicycle Creative, marketing sustainability-focused companies, and a blogger for GreenPositive.org, using positive green thinking to drive change.

Jocelyn Deprez, a retired French and English teacher, fights waste by transforming cooked food quickly and easily into appetizing new presentations. Her new book, The Refrigerator Files: A Guide to Creative Makeovers for your Leftovers (iUniverse, 2011) presents over 30 easy-to-follow procedures learned over many years lived in Europe and America. An inveterate “scrapper”, she loves to make delicious creations from those scraps.

Mark Eisen is the former director of environmental marketing at The Home Depot. He spends his day on the internet, trolling for the best ways to save money and save the planet.

Entering into her second year at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management master’s program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Miranda aspires to work within the Corporate Social Responsibility sector upon graduation. She earned her Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology and Environmental Studies at Santa Clara University and is active in both her Net Impact and Alpha Phi Fraternity communities. When she is not busy finding new ways to reduce her waste, she enjoys running, swimming, hiking, snowboarding, yoga, and baking treats for picnics in the park.

Not being exactly a tree-huggin’ Birkenstock green, Park and his sustainable marketing firm aim squarely at the middle of the consumer bell curve with their sustainable storytelling to nudge more people toward sustainable pursuits. (The views expressed on this and his blog, http://ParkHowell.com are his alone, although he’s not-so-subtly trying to make them yours, too.)

Lacy S. Kelly graduated from the University of Vermont where she majored in Environmental Studies and Economics. Her love of sustainability began during her time in Vermont and semester abroad to Barcelona, Spain. She considers herself sustainably chic and tries to reduce her footprint from the products she uses to the places she shops. When Lacy is not in the Big Apple, you can find her on the beach in Rhode Island with her 3 Labradors or on the slopes in Vermont skiing through the trees!

Jennifer escaped from the world of Wall St by digging a hole under her desk during her very short water breaks into the A/C vents. After miles of dark tunnels and dust bunnies, and Bailey her Pomeranian as her guide, she emerged in Brooklyn and began on her quest to help people clear their Closets of stuff! Armed with a BA from UC Berkeley and MBA from Columbia, she created ClosetDash, the social way to sell, swap or donate your stuff! She also throws killer swap parties. She calls both CA and NY her home and enjoys cooking large Korean meals for her friends.

Ilene uses her professional marketing skills to help inspire change about a societal issue that’s near to her heart – creating less trash that ends up in landfills or oceans. As our Social Media Queen, she’s the personality behind the scenes at our Twitter and Facebook pages. Ilene hopes everyone will reuse/recycle more than they discard, and when buying, consider the amount/type of product packaging plus where items will end up (in a landfill? recycled? a treasured keepsake? long usage life?).

Alexandra O’Hagan is a student at Columbia University studying Sustainable Development. She is a Waste Watcher at heart and is always looking for ways reduce her personal impact on the environment…and if it saves her money at the same time, then all the better!

Melissa O’Young has worked in the waste department for an eco-city, won awards for a start-up idea tackling food waste, and advised the UK Government on collaborative consumption. Melissa is passionate about getting consumers to adopt more sustainable behaviors and often writes about her own journey towards  sustainable lifestyle. Melissa also recently launched Let’s Collaborate NYC as a forum to discuss and inspire collaborative consumption in New York City. Follow her on Twitter at @Melalicious.

Kendra Pierre-Louis is the Vice President of Strategic Planning for the sustainability consulting firm Altanova energy+sustainability, author of the book Green Washed: Why We Can’t Buy Our Way to a Green Planet (Ig Publishing, 2012), and a volunteer with the White Roof Project. She credits her conservation and environmentalism, at least in part, to the cicadas she heard outside her bedroom window as a child growing up in Queens. (Kendra believes that everyone should be fortunate enough to be both awed and terrified by nature on a semi-regular basis.) Kendra received her B.A. in Economics from Cornell University and her M. A. in Sustainable Development from the SIT Graduate Institute. She has worked for the United Nations Environment Programme’s Convention on Biological Diversity and the New York Botanical Gardens.

Frugal by nature, and an environmentalist since the ’60s, Fredrica Rudell teaches Consumer Behavior and Green Marketing courses at Iona College, and is very involved with sustainability activities on campus. (The views expressed on this website are hers alone, and not those of her employer).

Melissa recently graduated from Cornell University with a BS in Natural Resources. She concentrated in Resource Planning and Management and is the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award.  She aspires to work within the sustainable resources sector. She exchanges clothing with friends, keeps a demitarian diet, and strives to reduce daily wastefulness.  She calls Long Island and New York City home.

Katie is a recent graduate from Hobart and William Smith Colleges with a major in Environmental Studies and a double minor in Geoscience and Latin American Studies.  She will be going into the Peace Corps in Panama in February 2013 for environmental education and conservation. When she’s not working at an organic restaurant, you can find her running, hiking, snowboarding, playing tennis and cooking up a storm.