Grace Lee

ReThink Disposable Interim Director, Clean Water Action and Clean Water Fund

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, froyo shops, schools, catering businesses, and even yacht clubs. Before working with Clean Water Fund, 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 and a Master's Degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Southern California. In her free time, Grace is planning her permaculture paradise somewhere off grid and obsessively eliminating plastic from her home.

So you passed an ordinance. Now what?
The circular reuse and packaging-free narrative is a journey with multiple milestones and hurdles. Passing a foodware reduction ordinance is the mid-point. Widespread knowledge of the ordinance, understanding how business owners process the news, and changing food operations come next. Using case studies from Alameda, Berkeley, San Anselmo, and learnings from San Francisco, hear what happens after an ordinance is passed and how to move zero-packaging from ordinance to reality.