Amy Norval – 2014 People to Watch

Occupation: Associate Designer, Dana Brown & Associates
Hometown: Covington
Age: 23

If you find yourself eating oysters with Amy Norval, she’s going to be the only one at the table tempted to pack the empty shells in her purse.

“I just want to save them all,” says the 2013 LSU graduate, whose lauded senior capstone project for her Landscape Architecture degree lays out an ambitious oyster shell recycling program that she and others say will battle coastal erosion—the shells make remarkable, environmentally friendly barriers—and provide a natural aggregate building material.

Louisiana is an oyster industry leader, of course, but it lacks a statewide recycling program for the shells, which would need support from the restaurant industry. Not long after Norval’s project was complete, Shell Oil gave $1 million to launch a pilot Oyster Shell Recycling and Reef Restoration Program in New Orleans. Acme Oyster House and Drago’s are participants.

Norval believes the state can do more, and that sustainability-minded designers like herself need to step up and reach state agencies, ecologists and restaurateurs.

“I want to take this wasted material and build Louisiana with it,” Norval says.

“Keep creating.”

For more on Norval, visit amynorval.com.