Marine Mammal Medicine & Rescue — Sophie Guarasci
About Sophie Guarasci
Sophie Guarasci worked in the world of fashion and finance before becoming a licensed veterinary tech. She works at the Marine Mammal Center, the nation’s foremost marine mammal hospital located just north of San Francisco. Sophie oversees the clinical and surgical treatment and husbandry of seals, sea lions, and sea otters. It’s her dream job, even though there are times she has to make difficult decisions about the treatment of severely ill animals. Every time the Center saves an animal and is able to release it back to the ocean, Sophie feels hope that they are making a difference.
Inside Marine Mammal Rescue: Sea Lions, Fur Seals, and Whale Disentanglement
Sophie discusses her work with stray dogs in La Paz, Mexico before moving to San Francisco with four of the dogs she and her husband rescued. Sophie particularly for the opportunity to work with marine mammals. It was her volunteer work at the marine mammal center that motivated her to attend school to become a vet tech. Working with the patients at the marine mammal hospital is always full of surprises and inspiration. Sophie talks about working with Northern fur seals, the less well known Guadalupe fur seal, California sea lions, and her work to disentange whales from fishing gear, work that is done not at the center but in the waters off of California.
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00:00:00 Pam Ferris-Olson Today on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist series on Wo(men) Mind the Water dot com, I am speaking with Sophie Guarasci. Sophie worked in the business world before becoming a licensed veterinary tech. Now she works at the Marine Mammal Center, the nation’s foremost marine mammal hospital. Sophie says it’s her dream job, even though there are times she has to make difficult decisions about the treatment of severely ill animals.
The Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast on womenmindthewater dot com engages artists in conversation about their work and explores their connection with the ocean. Through their stories, Wo(men) Mind the Water hopes to inspire and encourage action to protect the ocean and her creatures.
00:00:54 Pam Ferris-OlsonI am speaking with Sophie Guarasci, a licensed veterinary technician dedicated to the care and conservation of marine mammals. Sophie oversees the clinical and surgical treatment and husbandry of patients at the nation’s foremost marine mammal hospital. She also supervises and trains students and volunteers who are interested in both the care and conservation of marine mammals. Sophie and her colleagues look for clues to the underlying causes that led to the animals need for care.
00:01:24 Pam Ferris-OlsonWelcome Sophie, we feel extremely fortunate to have you with us. Typically, I start interviews by asking guests to talk about their background. But before you do, I want to say that I have been a long-time supporter of the Marine Mammal Center. When I first learned about the Center, it was a small operation located in the hills above the Golden Gate. Today the Marine Mammal Center campus in California has grown significantly and has a second smaller facility on the Big Island of Hawaii. The Marine Mammal Center has a volunteer force of about 1300 active volunteers and estimates it has rescued more than 24,000 marine mammals since its inception.
00:02:12 Pam Ferris-OlsonSophie, it seems you have long been interested in the care and Treatment of Animals. You cofounded a dog shelter in La Paz, Mexico. How did you come to be in La Paz? On the Baja California Peninsula in Mexico.
00:02:28 Sophie Guarasci Hi, Pam. Well, that's a good question. Originally, my husband and I were drawn down there to kite surf and scuba dive. But then we were really drawn by the beauty of the Sea of Cortez, by the abundance of marine life. I'm sure you've heard the phrase that Jacques Cousteau coined, “the aquarium of the world.” It really does merit that name. We were so drawn that we ended up packing up and moving down there full time.
00:02:57 Pam Ferris-OlsonWhy did you feel there was a need for a shelter and that was something you wanted to take part in?
00:03:03 Sophie Guarasci Really it was a question that somebody had to do it. I really couldn't ignore the many street dogs in need. I'd done some volunteer work in England at a dog shelter, at the RSPCA, and also recently adopted a dog in San Francisco, and just really saw a need for something like that down there. And it wasn't so much of a question that I wanted to do it but more that I really just had to do it.
00:03:31 Pam Ferris-OlsonYou and your husband share your home with four of them from the shelter. What was it about the dogs that made you want to adopt them and bring them to your home in California?
00:03:35 Sophie Guarasci I actually found all of them on the side of the street, different places along the highway, in a garbage dump, at a gas station. One was a little puppy, just two weeks old that was thrown in the garbage on the side of the road. So I couldn't really leave them. So they all came home with us. And you know they were supposed to be fosters. My husband wasn't really expecting to have so many dogs. But, you know, we just couldn't resist, even he could resist in the end. So they all stayed with us and we brought them back to California when we moved back.
00:04:30 Pam Ferris-OlsonI know from your background that you have a degree in fashion design and you served as a vice president with a multinational financial services company. So how is it or why would you decide to go back to school to become a veterinary technician?
00:04:40 Sophie Guarasci Well, it was actually the Marine Mammal Centre that inspired me. I started out as a volunteer at the Marine Mammal Center when we moved to San Francisco 20 years ago. I actually knew about the Marine Mammal Center when I lived in England. I sponsored animals on their website. It was one of the reasons I really wanted to move to San Francisco. My husband had the opportunity to move to California and so we settled on San Francisco. I signed up to be a volunteer at the Marine Mammal Center pretty much on my first day of arriving here. And moving from England, I was in awe of the ability to work in such close proximity to all the amazing species that come through the center. So that was what really inspired me to have a career change from finance and fashion design to becoming a very technician and getting licensed here. And now I've been working at the center full-time for 14 years on staff.
00:05:42 Pam Ferris-OlsonWell, I'm extremely jealous. I was unfortunate enough to have known about it and I moved away. I would have loved [to have worked there]. You know, I pay attention to what's going on, which is why I'm so glad that you came on and can share your passion and my passion with our listeners. So give us some of the basic facts that people should know about marine mammals.
00:06:08 Sophie Guarasci I mean, there are so many fascinating facts about marine mammals, so, you know, it's hard to know where to begin. Their intelligence, their physical capabilities, their resilience. But I think probably the one thing that people need to know the most is that they really are sentinels of ocean health. They tell us so much about their home, the ocean, which you know is essential to human health.
00:06:37 Pam Ferris-OlsonSo what aspects of working with these ocean creatures do you find most fascinating?
00:06:42 Sophie Guarasci One that really stands out to me is their resilience. I can give an example. One species that always fascinates me with just how resilient and how strong they are the little northern fur seal pups that we often get in the fall. These are species that live very far offshore from people. They are what's known as pelagic species. They rarely come ashore on to the mainland. But when we do get these patients, they’re usually young. They're three to four months old when they wean from their mothers. They're so small yet so strong. You know, they weigh between 20 to 30 lbs. And what fascinates me is that even at this small age and small size, they head out to sea for two years. They actually don't come back to land at all. They're far offshore. It always amazes me that they have these incredible abilities, and they're just so resilient, you know, to the ocean and to their environment.
00:07:51 Pam Ferris-OlsonSkipping to something on the other side of the scale of measurement. How large is the largest marine mammal you've worked with and can you tell us about the challenges of trying to treat an animal of that kind of size?
00:08:06 Sophie Guarasci I mean the largest species that we work with and I've worked with personally are whales. Of all you know, from blue whales to all kinds of whales and cetaceans and dolphins. We don't bring the whales into the center, but we do respond to them in the ocean to disentangle them. If you're talking about animals on site that we treat, then the California sea lions, big, crested California male sea lions that weigh up to 800 pounds are definitely the largest animals that we have on site. They present a huge array of challenges to work with.
00:08:49 Sophie Guarasci I mean because of their size, you know, we really have to adapt protocols to work with them, to sedate and anesthetize them But also just working with them day-to-day, trying to move them, trying to crate them, cleaning in their pens. You really have to learn to work with them. Because they're so large that if you want them to move somewhere, they're not going to move unless they want to move. So you really have to understand their behavior and their psychology. You have to learn how to work with them. I think getting to know how to understand them is really an important part of learning how to treat them.
00:09:32 Pam Ferris-Olson Being a vet, particularly of marine mammals, is very creative. You have to develop protocols and work with these animals and that's an art. It's an art and a science, of course.
00:09:48 Sophie Guarasci I'm glad you said that because it really is both. It's an art and a science. There's the obviously science behind it. But working day-to-day with the animals it's a bit of an art because you have to learn to do things around them. And as I said, with the big sea lions moving them around. Every animal is different. They're all individuals and individual cases. So it's definitely an art and a skill. I think a lot of people don't realize that.
00:10:16 Pam Ferris-Olson I expect it’s a challenge trying to treat a little known marine mammal. Have you ever faced that kind of situation?
00:10:24 Sophie Guarasci Yes, I have actually and it would be the Guadalupe fur seal. Their species is a threatened species that comes from Mexico. Their main breeding ground is actually Guadalupe Island which is 100 miles offshore in northern Baja. And really before 2015, they'd rarely been seen at the Marine Mammal Center and in California waters at all. Then in 2015, we had a large El Nino weather event. We suddenly had over 30 of these animals on site.
00:11:05 Sophie Guarasci We really didn't have a strong baseline for caring for these animals or how they would respond in rehabilitation. So we had to use our 50 years’ experience with other seals and sea lions to apply with them. We really learned by just working with them, and handling them, and treating them to see how they would react and behave. And in fact they're very different from other fur seal species. They're much more shy, much more reserved. So since then we've seen an increasing number every year. They've been migrating further north. Whether it's for warming waters or fishing practices and locations of fish. We've had to develop systems and protocols to care for them specifically for their care. And we've also engaged in a lot of population and behavior research with these animals to learn more. So they're definitely a good example of treating a species that very little was known before and having to learn from them.
00:12:18 Pam Ferris-Olson Well, it sounds like one of the most important things in your job is patience. Patience with yourself to figure out how to deal with the animal and patience with the animal to, you know, have them calm down and let you work with them.
00:12:37 Sophie Guarasci I agree, patience is very key. You certainly can't rush things or predict things when it comes to working with animals every day, every situation is very unpredictable.
00:12:51 Pam Ferris-Olson It keeps it interesting.
00:12:53 Sophie Guarasci Absolutely. Every day is interesting at the marine mammal center.
00:12:57 Pam Ferris-Olson So please tell us about one of your favorite encounters with a marine mammal.
00:13:02 Sophie Guarasci Gosh, that's a difficult question. There are so many encounters that are memorable. I have to say some of my favorite moments, the most gratifying to me, are when we cut fishing line or fishing nets off patients, particularly because it's something that we as humans have caused and these injuries can cause such great suffering. But we can alleviate them right away. So that's something that's very close to my heart. It’s that project that actually took me back to La Paz because I saw a need down there with the sea lion rookeries. There are a lot of entangled animals there so let me just start doing some disentanglement work down there with the local authorities and the local vets. And we've launched 6 expeditions down there. Since then, the locals have taken up that work and are doing it themselves and continue to do it. So we've actually entangled already counting over 60 animals which is very, very gratifying to me.
00:14:18 Pam Ferris-Olson It's very nice to hear that the locals have taken it up. So what would you say to someone who thinks that saving one animal isn't very important and that your efforts and that of the Marine Mammal Center should be focused on a bigger picture?
00:14:33 Sophie Guarasci Well, I believe that conservation is a global issue. You know, we all eat from the same ocean and we rely on the same ocean, which is particularly important as our populations continue to grow. So I think everyone does need to care about it and we can all make a difference in some way.
00:14:55 Pam Ferris-Olson I expect that most people in the San Francisco area know something about marine mammals. People from landlocked states, however, may not know much about marine mammals. Only what they've seen on TV, in movies or aquaria. Why should a person, say in Iowa, care about a sea lion found in the waters off California?
00:15:17 Sophie Guarasci These animals can tell us so much about what is going on out there in their home, in the ocean, which is so tied to human health. I think one fascinating fact that always stands out to me is that in the course of our work at the Marine Mammal Center, we've discovered that roughly one in four California sea lions has cancer. And we found that there are direct ties to human-caused contaminants like PCBs. And so again, our work is so closely tied to ocean life and what's going on out there. People do need to care about that because it does impact them. They're eating the same food. And so we really do need to take this issue seriously and learn from these animals.
00:16:08 Pam Ferris-Olson Finally, Sophie, what do you think are the greatest threats to marine mammals?
00:16:14 Sophie Guarasci Unfortunately Pam, there are a lot of threats to marine mammals from climate change to overfishing to pollution to ocean debris. Just to name a few. But I think we always have to have hope. Hopeful that with care and attention, we can restore a healthful balance to the oceans. And I do believe that everybody can make a difference. Every time we save an animal and we release them back to the ocean, it makes me hopeful that we can make a difference.
00:16:48 Pam Ferris-Olson I am extremely grateful to you, not only for being on, but for the work that you do both for the animals and in conserving the ocean. So thank you very much.
I’d like to remind listeners that I’ve been speaking with Sophie Guarasci, who is concerned with the medical care and conservation of marine mammals. Sophie and her colleagues at the Marine Mammal Center also work to understand the underlying causes for their patients illnesses.
00:17:18 Pam Ferris-Olson Sophie is the latest guest on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. The series can be viewed on Wo(men) Mind the Water.com, Museum on Main Street, and YouTube. An audio-only version of this podcast is available on Women Mind the Water dot com, on iTunes, and Spotify. Women Mind the Water is grateful to Jaine Rice for the use of her song Women of Water. All rights for the Wo(men) Mind the Water name and logo belong to Pam Ferris-Olson. This is Pam Ferris-Olson.
00:00:28 The Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast on womenmindthewater dot com engages artists in conversation about their work and explores their connection with the ocean. Through their stories, Wo(men) Mind the Water hopes to inspire and encourage action to protect the ocean and her creatures.
00:01:01 Pamela Ferris-Olson I am speaking with Manuela Zoninsein, a Brazilian-American who has vivid memories of the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and an active mind designing and building a 21st century vending machine, capable of sanitizing, refilling and dispensing beverage containers. Her company Kadeya is on a mission to replace the single-use plastic bottle problem, with an innovative sustainable system, that will be an important factor in addressing the plastic pollution crisis and reducing carbon dioxide.
00:01:36 Welcome Manuela. I am most interested to hear about Brazil’s coast and learn about your journey from journalist to sustainable water advocate and entrepreneur. I don’t know how many of my listeners are aware of the kind of work that goes into launching a business, particularly one designed to be a significant contributor in the work to curb plastic pollution.
Let’s begin by having you tell us a little about Brazil. Please describe the beaches that keep you coming back regularly.
00:02:09 Manuela Zoninsein Hi, Pam. Hi, everybody. It's a great pleasure to be here.
Thanks for having me. So I am dialed in today from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil which is where I was born. We are in Rio proper across from Ipanema Beach, which is one of the more famous beaches in the world. And if you've never had the chance to come down to Rio and specifically to Ipanema, I can't recommend it enough. Everything you've heard is true and better.
00:02:44 The beach that has really kept me coming back has a more immediate personal significance to me. That's beach is called Itacoatiara, which I think is the most beautiful beach in the world that I've ever seen. It’s across the Guanabara Bay from Rio de Janeiro.
00:03:06 Pamela Ferris-Olson Let me ask you. You like to walk on the beaches there and you collect trash. What sort of changes have you noticed over the years in the amount or type of trash that you find during your walks?
00:03:18 Manuela Zoninsein So when I was a kid and we would go to the beaches in Brazil and around Rio, it ends up being a family affair. It's like your public living room. Everybody goes when the day is hot on the weekend. You set up shop. You stay there for the day. And I remember we used to bring food. That was a common thing. You kind of bring a picnic and you'd set up for the day and then at the end you'd pack up and go home.
00:03:46 And as you all are probably aware and familiar, the omnipresence of single use packaging and the conveniences that those products afford us have led to people not bringing reusable containers that they carry to the beach or a picnic and for their hydration. Instead people come empty handed and buy products at the beach. And that is an amazing part of a lot of the beaches throughout Brazil, I'll say really quickly, Brazil's national policy does not allow privatization of beaches. So you can access every single beach in Brazil, unlike in the United States. There's a whole secondary economy on the beaches and you have beach vendors who specialize in different products that are very popular and localized. So now you go to the beach and you bring cash to buy, you know, your grilled cheese. Guys walk around with little grills that they grill the cheese live there for you. They coat them with different seasonings or with honey or different cookies or crackers and biscuits.
00:05:02 Manuela Zoninsein One of the famous ones called Globo. So while there's this great secondary economy that provides additional cash for, you know, the lower echelons of the economic rungs here, the flip side of it is that there is just a lot more trash people leave behind. Depending on what area of the country and what city you're in, there's different levels of awareness. I've been surprised on this visit back to Rio, we come every year, that there's garbage bins now that are split into organics and recyclables. So I’m starting to see a little bit of a conversation around that. Carnival just started and there's the big Sambadrome, which is like the huge parade center for all the carnival competitions. You'll see the samba schools parading down. Now they're trying to have reusable cups. So you see increments of sustainability conversation increasing but for the most part, you know, people come to the beach and it's both their living room, their public living room, but also their public garbage.
00:06:21 Yeah, I've been shocked at how much garbage there is and everybody is aware of it. I remember when I started walking on the beach in Itacoatiara and collecting garbage. You know, there were teenagers who saw me do it and they were like “Oh, it's cool that you're collecting [Manuela uses a Brazilian word for trash]. So people understand that there's a problem. But I'm not seeing a scaled approach to how to solve that problem.
00:06:45 Pamela Ferris-Olson What made you decide to tackle the issue of plastic pollution? To be sure, it is an enormous challenge. Plastic debris makes up 80% of all marine debris.
00:06:56 Manuela Zoninsein Part of it was I had the opportunity to live in China between 2007 and 2015. As you mentioned, I had a previous life as a climate correspondent when I started out in Beijing reporting for Newsweek and a construction publication called The Engineering NewsRecord. One of the great takeaways of my time in China is I got the chance to see what happens when 1.5 billion people do anything. You get to see in fast forward the benefits and the shortcomings of any policy or any economic decision. And I saw in front of my eyes what happened at scale with plastic waste. So I really came back to the US with that in my mind. And then the other key takeaways, two of them really quickly. I saw society and culture change from reuse to single use. There's no reason why behavior change can't also go in the other direction, right? It shows you the malleability of culture and behavior change and so I thought, “Well, what would it take to go in the other direction?”
00:08:07 Manuela Zoninsein And then the third take away is that the US created this problem We have to be the ones to create the solution. I spent a year back in Brazil on another startup and then in 2016 relocated full time to the US and said, “I'm going to figure this out.”
00:08:28 Pamela Ferris-Olson So was the idea to start your company, one that dispenses reusable beverage containers, a product of your MBA studies, or did you pursue the MBA so you could develop the idea for Kadeya into a marketable concept?
00:08:46 Manuela Zoninsein Great question. So in 2016, when I moved back to the US, I joined a software tech company headquartered out in Silicon Valley. I was in their New York office. I was doing nothing related to sustainability for my day job. And the reason I was willing to do that is because they are and were one of the best companies in the world to this day for figuring out how you present the right data to the right non-technical individual to make a great decision. In their case it was in the business context. I felt that learning how to present the data that matters to individuals at a moment where they're making decisions was critical to winning this journey against climate change. On the side, I started the Sustainability Club and as a club we decided the problem we wanted to solve, that we felt was within our reach, was to help the company transition away from single use beverage consumption. Like a lot of well-funded tech companies of the time, we had a very well stocked kitchen and every floor had packaged goods that you could go and grab for free at any time.
00:10:04 Manuela Zoninsein And I would sit in the kitchen doing work on my laptop and watch people go to the fridges, even though we had refill stations of all types. We had unlimited kombucha on tap and cold brew coffee on tap. We had the basics in place for a reusable system. The glass was ready to go that you could grab out of the kitchen and refill. But people were not using them, they were going to the fridge, opening the fridge door and grabbing a bottle of whatever. We wanted to figure out why and to try to change that behavior. What we ultimately did is we designed a reusable water bottle program for the company. Over three years we defrayed single use by about 30%. And so I took that insight with me to Business School.
00:10:48 Pamela Ferris-Olson Whether you're trying to convince an investor or somebody who's giving grants, I imagine you can't do it just on an idea on a piece of paper. You have to have a working model or prototype. So where does somebody get the money to build the prototype?
00:11:05 Manuela Zoninsein So you do have to network your way to meet wealthy individuals who have themselves had already had some sort of financial exit and who are aligned with your idea. So anyone out there who has an idea get started building that network because it takes time and it also really does pay off. I'm now connecting with people who I met four years ago. I kept them in mind and I tracked them and I kept in touch and now they are going to potentially be able to invest in Kadeya. I was very focused on proving out the potential of my idea without building the full technology.
00:11:51 Pamela Ferris-Olson OK, so I'm really interested about this machine. It sells containers, which is not a new idea. But it also accepts back the used containers and then the machine cleans and refills them. Doesn't that mean that you have to have a really large machine to do all those functions?
00:12:12 Manuela Zoninsein Yeah, you've got most of that right. So our machine is a bit wider than like a double door fridge that you would have at home. You go up to that machine and we have a touch screen that lets you pick out what beverages you want. We don't only serve water now. We also have carbonated products and flavored products. We can do cold brew coffee and iced tea. You pick your beverage. Then a stainless steel bottle with our custom design and has been pre washed sanitized and inspected drops down. And then it gets filled, kind of like a soda fountain. And then we cap it and you grab your bottle. The idea there is we are emulating the experience of a vending machine or that fridge at your workplace that you open the door and reach in and grab it. In about ten seconds you can have a packaged beverage that you grab and enjoy that beverage. When you're done, you can return that bottle to any station in the network. The analogy here is bike sharing for bottles. You're just borrowing the bottle, so you're not buying the bottle. You're buying the product, you're buying your coke, you're buying your Gatorade to enjoy, and then return that bottle.
Over here what is my right shoulder [Manuela points to an image of the Kadeya machine]. And then the bottle gets inspected to make sure there isn't any major debris like cigarette butts, bubble gum, plastic wrappers, chicken bones, in which case we would reject the bottle. Assuming the bottle is generally free of debris, we accept the bottle and then it goes through a rigorous wash and sanitize procedure and then a dry process. Finally a final inspection where we can identify a blonde hair, a hairline fracture, a chip on the lip or dent on the side. If there are any problems with the sanitized bottle, we will reject it. Internally we have a little reject bin. Otherwise that bottle goes into a little storage facility or box that is humidity and temperature controlled and awaiting the next consumer to come in and order their beverage.
00:14:21 Pamela Ferris-Olson This is all in one machine?
00:14:24 Speaker 3 Manuela Zoninsein All in one machine.
00:14:26 Pamela Ferris-Olson Amazing. So you said you have an Air Force contract. Why was the Air Force or what were they trying to do? What problem did they want to address that they wanted a Kadeya machine?
00:14:39 Manuela Zoninsein It turns out the problem today is solving, if we think back to what I was saying about, you know, as environmentalists, digging into why single use works today. The problem we end up solving as compared to single use is a logistics problem. With single use in these environments, the employer is currently providing pallets and pallets and pallets of bottled water. These are bought wholesale at your Costco, Walmart and then somebody is loading those pallets on the back of a truck. Somebody is driving that truck. Somebody's unloading those pallets off into some sort of local storage on-site facility and then someone is fork lifting those pallets to where the workers are, and then someone is cutting open those pallets of, you know, the plastic wrap and then handing out bottles or restocking coolers in hot months. That is a huge logistical lift to make sure that an individual has a container in his or her hand full of good quality water that they can then tip back and drink. In today's case, by connecting to the existing water line, we're providing that bottled beverage where the worker is without any of those logistics that I just described you.
00:16:14 Pamela Ferris-Olson You’ve really made it clear. There's so many questions that I can ask you but we don't have enough time for that. So I'm going to ask you, given your experience with Kadeya, I wonder how you would advise listeners to tackle a problem that is important to them. Where should someone start?
00:16:33 Manuela Zoninsein You have to be utterly obsessed with solving the problem, because every day you are going to face barriers. Every day people are going to say ‘No.’ I get more noes. I get nine noes for every yes. Because I so believe in what I am is doing and so believe that the problem needs to be solved. I believe that I'm the right person to do it and the time is now. So that's the first thing. Be obsessed. Get to know everything and everyone in that space, and then start to develop an understanding of where others are not doing it well in your opinion. Develop that opinion. Develop that hypothesis and then continually improve that.
00:17:22 Manuela Zoninsein The next point is and this is, I think, scary, especially for women because a lot of us have been raised to be perfectionists and to open our mouths with an idea only once we feel that we've improved the idea and tested it. You got to throw that away.
I like to say don't be a perfectionist, don't get good at being perfect, get good at being good enough. And what that entails is talking about your idea before you know enough to have the right comments. People will criticize you. Be okay with that and accept it and enjoy it because those early criticisms that early feedback is going to lead to such rapid iterations of your idea. That's what I was doing at MIT. I was saying, “I think I want to build city bike for bottles.”
I hadn't baked out that idea and people said, “Well, that's crazy. How you gonna get the bottles back?” I said, “That's a good point.” And then I sat down for a month and worked on that.
00:18:28 Pamela Ferris-Olson I feel your passion. I feel hope that maybe this plastic bottle situation has an advocate like you that we will make a big bite in it. So thank you for your passion and for you being willing to step up and try and make a difference.
I'd like to remind listeners that I have been speaking with Manuela Zoninsein, founder and CEO of Kadeya, a company focused on reducing plastic consumption and thus making the beverage industry more sustainable. Manuela Zoninsein is the latest guest on the Wo(men) Mind the Water Artivist Series podcast. The series can be viewed on Wo(men) Mind the Water.com, Museum on Main Street, and YouTube. An audio-only version of this podcast is available on Wo(men) Mind the Water dot com, on iTunes, and Spotify. Wo(men) Mind the Water is grateful to Jaine Rice for the use of her song Women of Water. All rights for the Wo(men) Mind the Water name and logo belong to Pam Ferris-Olson. This is Pam Ferris-Olson.
