"Hi! I'm Rachel and I love garbage!"
That's how every 'tell-me-about-yourself' conversation or introduction for me starts regardless of what room I'm in. I'm unashamedly, un-bashfully and over enthusiastically in a love affair with waste.
I'm sometimes known as Rachel the Recycling Girl (also lovingly & formally known as Trash Girl). My love runs as deep as a landfill and wide as the Pacific Garbage Patch. I have a degree from Virginia Tech in Humanities, Science and Environment with projects, essays conversations and extracurricular's rooted in rubbish abatement & recycling.
In NYC I was in AmeriCorps helping small businesses get a leg up in their ever changing neighborhoods. I was surrounded by people who just 100% loved what they did every day. I volunteered with GrowNYC at their Greenmarket and with the Office of Recycling Education & Outreach. NYC is where I composted (successfully) for the first time.
In Los Angeles my dream came true when I was hired by a local government to do recycling outreach, education and policy. I also intern for the California Research Recovery Association doing their social media and annual conference assistance. CRRA is where I found my people, my garbage-loving-geek-out-on-zero-waste-jargon-learn-all-the-resource-recovery-things people.
After two major moves across the United States and a year of spinning my wheels in two part time jobs (which rocked, but were still part-time) and a wedding I took a huge leap and landed in a dream Masters program. These days I'm kicking it in Lund, Sweden hanging out with 27 international students at the IIIEE Masters in Environmental Management & Policy. The plan is to dive deep into circular economy, global consumption, corporate sustainability & industrial zero waste! (No, I have not been converted to a "waste-to-energy-person. But they are trying really hard...)
