Desiree LaBeaud: Circular Futures – Transforming Waste Into Opportunity in Coastal Kenya

Why It Matters

The project demonstrates a practical, scalable model linking circular waste management with public-health gains and local job creation, showing how integrated environmental and economic interventions can reduce vector-borne disease risk in low‑resource coastal communities.

Summary

Desiree LaBeaud, a Stanford pediatric infectious-disease specialist, linked plastic pollution in coastal Kenya to breeding of the Aedes aegypti mosquito and launched multi-year interventions combining education, community cleanups and market-based recycling. School programs turned children into mosquito scouts and a cleanup recovered over 17,000 containers and planted native trees; a subsequent ‘trash to treasure’ business incubation professionalized informal plastic recyclers, increasing plastic off the streets and stabilizing incomes. To scale impact she founded the Health and Environmental Research Institute (H.E.R.I.) Kenya to drive community engagement, improve waste infrastructure, develop second‑use markets and push policy for sustainable recycling. The interventions produced measurable reductions in Aedes breeding and improved livelihoods among waste-sector workers.

Original Description

Our faculty explain their research and findings in talks designed to showcase scholarship and build intellectual connections across disciplines. Desiree LaBeaud, professor of infectious diseases and senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, presents at the April 2026 Faculty Forum in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.