Dave Ford

"Dave Ford is the Founder of the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network.

His introduction to the plastics crisis took place on an impromptu one-day waste tour in Delhi, India. He toured the Ghazipur landfill, a mountain of waste on the outskirts of town. The giant mound was smoking from fires deep underneath, and hundreds of people were wading through the trash, reclaiming plastic. The impact and understanding that this profound experience garnered catalyzed his passion for taking executives to experience the plastic crisis firsthand.

Eighteen months later, the Ocean Plastics Leadership Summit set sail and immersed 165 corporate and NGO leaders into the heart of the Atlantic Garbage Patch (500 miles off the coast of Bermuda). CEOs and activists had difficult conversations and gathered plastic in the middle of the ocean. The 100+ organization activist-to-industry Ocean Plastics Leadership Network (OPLN) was born on this mission.

In 2021 the OPLN launched the Global Treaty Dialogues, a global virtual summit series engineered to build capacity and understanding around a Global Plastics Treaty. Participants include one hundred forty organizations from 34 countries across the vast plastic stakeholder spectrum.

Dave has Baltimore roots, living with his wife and four-year-old daughter in the Hudson Valley, New York."