Valerie Madison Fine Jewelry creates unique pieces from recycled metals and ethically sourced diamonds. She stands out in the sustainable jewelry industry by being an exceptionally talented Black Latina in the predominately white fine jewelry industry, but also because of her commitment to sustainability. Valerie shares how she got started, her inspiration, and the importance of creating everything in her city, Seattle.

Abena boamah is the founder of hanahana beauty. she shares how she started hanahana while she was in grad school, what she wishes she knew when she first started her sustainable beauty business, and the importance of building a true relationship with the women in ghana who supply the shea butter for her beauty products.

Lois Ko is the owner of Sweet Alchemy Ice Creamery which has two locations in Ballard and the U District in Seattle. in our conversation, she shares her journey from being an ice cream scooper to an organic ice cream shop owner, how she’s managed to reduce waste in her business, and her advice for other business owners...

Blendily is a skincare kitchen based in Portland, Oregon. We got to chat with founder, Ivy Chuang, who was motivated to create Blendily by her daughter’s birth...

Girlfriend Collective is a sustainable fashion brand based in Seattle. We got to learn more about their environmentally and socially responsible initiatives including their new closed loop manufacturing program, Girlfriend, in this interview...

According to a study by Great Forest, 77% of a business’s trash isn’t trash at all. We send valuable organic matter, paper, glass, metal, and more to the landfill when those materials could go to much better use...

Whenever I encounter someone new and share about the work that I do, I’m usually met with one of two reactions: 1) appreciation or 2) curiosity. I tell them I want to build a zero waste world, that I think about trash all day, and that every facet of sustainability is interconnected...

When I first stumbled across the zero waste movement, I was stunned. I was introduced to the concept via a viral video of a woman who could fit all of her trash into a sixteen-ounce mason jar...

Could you imagine living in a zero waste city? The small town of Kamikatsu is a place where the people manage to divert essentially all of their waste from the landfill.

At the end of each module in our new course, Road to Zero Waste, we share a handful of additional resources to support your learning. We’ve compiled them in one place for easy access.

Even after transitioning almost all of my traditional household products to zero waste alternatives AND committing to shopping primarily secondhand AND learning how to grow my own food AND thinking about how to be a more conscious consumer 24/7, trash still happens.