California’s ReThink Disposable program ended 2024 on a high note! It was a year of amazing accomplishments and we are so grateful to our Board, our members, and our valued supporters for trusting us to do this work.
Back in May, we hosted California’s first ever Clean Water Making Waves fundraising event, to great success! Taking place at Fluid510 in Oakland, we honored three Bay Area champions – San Leandro Councilmember Victor Aguilar, Jr., mainstay in the reusable movement Miriam Gordon, and leaders of the next generation at Heirs to our Oceans. We brought together many more of our coalition partners for an evening of networking and connection, all while raising funds to continue our cause.
We launched several new case studies this year, including the Gurdwara Temple in Fremont which is saving a whopping $46,000 annually by switching to reuse, and a community study in Fruitvale where five local restaurants were able to collectively save $10,000 per year and stop over 3,240 pounds of single use plastics from hitting the waste stream. We also wrapped up a two year contract with the City of Mountain View where we stretched a little out of our comfort zone into the compostable takeout world; our Pokeworks case study shows that even with the higher cost of compostables, businesses can still save money with a full dine-in conversion!
We’re kicking off several new projects in 2025. We’ve landed new grants and contracts with the National Parks Foundation, the Cities of Berkeley and Fremont, and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, where we will launch a pilot program for San Jose. And of course, we look forward to continuing our existing partnerships with the City of Alameda, StopWaste Alameda County, the City of San Francisco, and Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority.
Thank you again for supporting our work, we couldn’t do it without you! We look forward to a successful 2025 and hope we can count on your continued support.
