June’s Sustainability Snapshot is ESA’s new employee Heather Langendorfer.
Heather is managing our EverGREEN Refill Station located in the Blue Spruce Habitat Restore in Evergreen.  Heather has successfully created and marketed a line of women’s outdoor clothing, worked with startups and large companies in developing go-to-market strategies, is a gardener, forest therapy guide and so much more.  Read about Heather’s relationship with the earth and desire to reduce plastic for the earth!

What inspired you to adopt more sustainable practices in your life?

I am a gardener & forest therapy guide as well as lifelong lover of nature.  My training as a forest therapy guide put a spotlight on the relationship we all have to nature & hour it nourishes us. And, being a gardener helped me connect the full-circle of our impact – the bees, the compost – we are nothing without the planet.  The planet is everything without us.

Can you give some examples of how you practice a sustainable lifestyle (either related to zero waste, renewable energy, conservation, involvement with ESA etc.)?
We started composting at home as a result of ESA, but I also grow and preserve most of my own food and even make my own DIY home products because I’ve always wondered what the refill shops do with their plastic containers.  Maybe now I’ll start buying a few more of them now that I’m the one returning/refilling them 😋
What words of wisdom do you have for someone just getting stared on their journey to ‘go green’?Don’t try to boil the ocean!!!  Conduct a waste audit, and pick just one or two small changes that you do often.  You’ll be amazed at how quickly you can make a difference.  For example, did you know a drippy faucet can waste as much as 3K gallons of water per year?  One teeny effort to fix that leak is the more than a human will drink in 5 years!  Imagine that.  Another great easy fix is coffee.  1 Starbucks cup or Kcup per day is approximately 25 Cu Meters of waste each year….  that simple change could reduce your waste legacy by a LOT!
I’m excited to work with Evergreen Sustainability to make refillable products a reality here in Evergreen.  Stop in or shoot me an email at refill@sustainevergreen.org and let’s start reducing your plastic legacy.