Mary Cropenbaker is the Assistant Solid Waste Manager at Hamilton County ReSource, the solid waste district for the Cincinnati region, where she helps businesses, schools, and communities cut what they send to the landfill. She piloted 513 Green, a free sustainability certification now used by dozens of local organizations. But her path into waste and sustainability started somewhere you would never guess: a psychology lab studying how pigeons gamble.

Mary grew up along the Ohio River, hopping fences and running through cow pastures, and headed to college for animal cognition research, not the environment. A single class on business sustainability changed her direction. This first episode traces the human turns behind that shift, including the senior-year crisis of realizing research alone would never let her act on what she was learning. The conversation draws out that lived experience while pressing on how a foundation in data and science communication became the throughline of everything she does now. What emerges is a portrait of someone who kept following her curiosity until it added up to a career.

Episode in a glance

00:57 Growing Up in Cow Pastures Along the Ohio River
02:38 The Psychology Major Who Fell for Sustainability
04:24 What Gambling Pigeons Taught Her About People
07:10 From a Zoo Practicum to the EPA to Zero Waste
13:04 Inside a Solid Waste District That Serves Everyone
21:44 Why This Work Still Gives Her Hope

About Mary Cropenbaker

Mary Cropenbaker is the Assistant Solid Waste Manager at Hamilton County ReSource, the solid waste district serving the Cincinnati, Ohio region, where she helps businesses, schools, and communities implement waste reduction strategies on the path to zero waste. She holds a master's in environmental science from Miami University's Institute for Environment and Sustainability and an MBA with a certificate in sustainable business, and her background spans psychology research, a sustainability practicum at the Cincinnati Zoo, and a role at the US EPA. She piloted the 513 Green Certification Program, a free sustainability certification that has certified 67 organizations across the region.

Connect with Mary Cropenbaker and her work

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/marycropenbaker

Hamilton County ReSource → hamiltoncountyresource.org

513 Green Certification → 513green.com

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