About
What we understand to be “normal” can be changed.
This world is a social construction and it can be reconstructed and rebuilt to become the world we imagine.
— Sheila Morovati, Founder HabitsofWaste.org
As social change makers, we believe in the power of the individual to make small changes within their daily lives to protect the planet and combat climate change. At Habits of Waste, our goal is to activate large numbers of people with accessible behavior changes to collectively have a greater impact than a few people doing it “perfectly.”
At Habits of Waste we provide solutions, allowing individuals to live more eco-consciously without overwhelm.
We all have a role to play. Join our campaigns for a variety of actions that you can take to make a positive environmental impact today.
Background: Our founder, Sheila Morovati, sees habitual waste throughout society and creates change to protect our environment. She and her two children successfully spearheaded the historic ban on single-use plastic straws and cutlery in the City of Malibu. Sheila realized that an iconic beach city like Malibu would create the ripple effect that was so necessary to create change.
Malibu was the first city to make such a ban go into effect and the number of cities and countries that followed suit is awe-inspiring. Since then, Sheila created numerous campaigns that have effected change such as #CutOutCutlery, which successfully convinced Uber Eats, Postmates, Doordash and Grubhub to change the default setting in their applications so that users only receive plastic cutlery upon request resulting in saving over 2.5 billion pieces of plastic from entering the waste stream. This campaign is ongoing as we continue our work with quick service restaurants globally.
Sheila also founded 
a non-profit called, crayoncollection.org, which has grown to become a tremendous success with a presence in all 50 states and 9 countries. Her idea was born alongside her daughter Sofia after regularly frequenting family friendly restaurants and realizing that restaurants in the United States throw away over 150 million crayons per year, which do not decompose as they are made of paraffin wax. This problem was further compounded because Sheila recognized the subliminal message of discarding like-new crayons was teaching our children that a throw-away culture is acceptable. Her solution was to redirect would-have-been-trashed crayons from restaurants and well-served communities and distribute them, along with free art education curricula, to local Title 1 Schools and Head Start Centers within 5 miles.
Since its inception, Crayon Collection has redirected over 25 million crayons from landfill and continues to set new norms throughout society around waste reduction and upcycling.
Awards and Recognition
Outstanding Waste Reduction Program, #CutOutCutlery
California Resource Recovery Association
Habits of Waste is proud to be a part of the United Nations Civil Society Conference for our contributions to waste reduction strategies and climate change education.
HoW was the evolution of much work that had been done to alleviate habitual waste from entering landfill.
Initially, we focused our efforts around single-use plastic straws and cutlery. Changing the habits around these everyday objects makes a huge environmental impact. Today, we work to rethink ALL of the wasteful societal behavior that is ENGRAINED in our daily actions. Many are no longer visible as they are so embedded in our daily routines and norms. Our mission is to highlight those habits and create sustainable ones instead.
To optimize our impact, we have expanded our
environmental efforts into Habits of Waste (HoW). Just
as Crayon Collection was able to convince the world that
crayons are not trash, HoW does the same with a myriad
of habitual behaviors that result in enormous levels of
waste. Our efforts to raise awareness of the dangers of a
throw-away society are key to making grass-roots
change.
HoW (habitsofwaste.org) focuses on protecting our
planet via a collective societal effort of individuals making
change.
