Brittany Zimmerman Sells Her Vision To Hawaiʻi County – But Is It For Real?

_{(Above photo: Final lab configuration of the experiments done by Brittany Zimmerman in support of her master’s thesis at the University of North Dakota: “Closing the Loop in Life Support Systems for Spaceflight and Habitation: Reutilization of Human Excrement through Recovery of Potable Water and Reclamation of Waste Materials for In-Space Additive Manufacturing.” CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA)}

By her own accounts, Brittany Zimmerman, CEO of Yummet Hawaiʻi, LLC, came to the Big Island about a year ago. Since then, she has managed to sell her vision of a carbon-negative, hydrogen-positive, waste-free, clean-water-generating industry to any number of community leaders and policy makers.

Her efforts culminated last March, when the Hawaiʻi County Council unanimously – and enthusiastically – endorsed Resolution 73-23, which takes Zimmerman’s vision and makes it into a goal for the county, to be achieved by 2026.

Specifically, the resolution calls for the county’s “on-island carbon footprint” to be “reduced by converting diverted waste into renewable energies or products such as carbon-negative cement made from microalgae, which can reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; biochar, a black carbon produced by burning agricultural and green waste in a controlled process that can be used to enhance soil quality and mitigate climate change; green hydrogen, a clean energy source made by electrolyzing water using electricity from surplus renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power; and onsite non-potable water reuse system [sic] that captures and treats water to reclaim, recycle, and reuse for non-drinking purposes.”

The county “will work to divert, as appropriate, all municipal solid waste, including green waste, metals, plastics, paper, paperboard, and glass by 2026 to an on-island site that will sustainably process the waste into carbon-negative cement, biochar, green hydrogen, and reclaimed water,” the resolution states.

The resolution did not undergo review by any of the council’s committees before being brought to the full council for consideration. Among the two dozen or so members of the public who testified before the council that day, all but one spoke in favor of the resolution – or, more to the point, spoke in favor of Zimmerman and her company, Yummet. There were corporate officers or others who claimed affiliation with Yummet. There were residents of Panaewa and Keaukaha, who were swayed by Zimmerman’s promise to get rid of the wastewater outfall offshore of Keaukaha and who believed her pledge to provide 300 jobs to the community. A member of the Rotary Club told the council she was “fully in support of Brittany and Yummet. It’s life-changing and world-changing.”

And on it went. Just one member of the public, Kristine Kubat, executive director of Recycle Hawaiʻi, testified in opposition. “I thought we would be talking generically, but it turns out we’re talking specifically about Yummet,” she said. “It’s inappropriate to look at this before you do due diligence.”

The council should wait and the resolution should be rewritten, she said, adding, “It needs to specifically not talk about turning green waste – which we need very much here – or turning cardboard or paper over to this type of operation. We don’t want to sequester glass in cement.  We don’t want to take metal. All these things can be reused. Zero waste means not making waste to begin with.”

Zimmerman herself was the last to testify. “My background is in the engineering side of things here. I did mechanical and aerospace engineering. My graduate work specializes in bio-regenerative physico-chemical hybrid life support systems for long-duration space flight,” she said. She continued:

“I led very large teams at NASA, Boeing, private organizations, the space community, universities, and the Department of Defense through the development of technologies that do just what we’re looking at doing here. And that is reclaiming water. It’s reducing waste, right? It’s making sustainable building materials. It’s water reclamation in multiple ways, both potable and for agricultural use. It’s nutrient cycle, so it’s looking at agriculture.

“And the big thing about what we do in space that we’ve really translated here is that when we develop things for space architectures, every single molecule is so important. We take out the bit where we say, ‘hey, we have these giant sinks environmentally that can take up the waste, right?’ – we don’t have that space.

“So the way that we end up innovating, right? It is more of a system-level approach, ends up being something that we love to take from space and then implement here on Earth.”

Zimmerman said she arrived on the island about a year ago and since then, “I got the awesome opportunity to live all over the island thus far. 

“I got to stay in Kona when I first arrived, moved up to Waimea, down to Holualoa … then to Captain Cook. To Ocean View. To Volcano, Keaʻau, Hawaiian Paradise Park, Kalapana, Pahoa, then made my way up the Hamakua Coast. I got to live in Hakalau, Honokaʻa, Hawi, and then now in Hilo.”

She concluded stating that she had grown “very attached to a lot of people in the communities” and urged the council to pass the resolution “because the people I’ve met here, they deserve clean air and they deserve clean water.”

The council members did not question Zimmerman or any of the witnesses she brought forward. But questions were directed to the engineer who heads the county’s Environmental Management Department, Ramzi Mansour, about the feasibility of achieving all that the resolution asked for by 2026.

Rather noncommittally, he described it as a reminder to his agency of its direction to maintain a clean and healthy environment.  

“It definitely brings in new technology,” he said. But before the county could move forward on any of these projects, there would need to be formal requests for proposals, due diligence, and the like.

Council member Michelle Galimba was a bit skeptical. “It kind of sounds too good to be true,” she said. “There’s a certain amount of Yummet around it. We got a lot of testimony about this one specific company.”

Galimba asked corporation counsel Elizabeth Strance whether the resolution was too focused on one company. 

“Resolutions are not legally binding,” Strance replied, “but they do state a policy preference of the direction the council would like to see the work of the county go.”

Council member Cindy Evans confessed to being bothered by language in the resolution. “I have trouble with how this is written. … It’s saying here that we’ll work to divert to an on-island site – one site – that will process waste” into all these products.

“It’s really specific,” she continued. “It’s not pie in the sky. It’s basically saying this is what you’re going to do. I’m very uncomfortable with the language as written.”

Evans noted that the county already has contracts for the production of mulch from green waste and contracts with people who pick up waste and deliver it to landfills. “When they pick up waste and put it in their trucks, they pretty much own the waste and can do with it what they want. So I’m a little confused, because it looks like we already have a lot of comments, yet this asks you to divert everything by 2026. … Where are we at on our contracts? Are you able to give [Yummet] diverted waste streams?”

Mansour replied that there were “a lot of different things in the hopper, based on regulatory requirements – the EPA, the Department of Health. Need and demand change. That’s very dynamic. These are things we need to look into, and work with the corporation counsel to navigate.”

Evans concluded by stating that although the “idea has merit, I can’t support it as written.”

Council member Ashley Kierkewicz broke down in tears when delivering her comments on the resolution.

“I lie awake every single night, afraid, anxious, stressed out, about the state of affairs of our environment, our global community, this incredible weight, the challenges we’re facing … and I get emotional,” she said.

“You know what this resolution is for me? It’s a reminder to act with urgency because we are running out of time. It’s not endorsing any particular company or solution. We have to do every single thing to turn over every stone. … What do we have to lose?”

Despite the hesitancy of Evans and Galimba, the resolution unanimously passed.

NDAs

During the council hearing, frequent reference was made to the upcoming visit by Doug Adams, chief of the county’s Department of Research and Development, to a Minnesota plant that uses waste products to produce the very kind of cement from that Zimmerman describes. One of the testifiers, Kevin MacDonald, stated that it was his operation that Adams would be touring. Adams confirmed that he met with MacDonald, CEO of Beton Consulting Engineers, and its materials scientist, Mark Lukkarila.

Adams confirmed to Environment Hawaiʻi Zimmerman’s claim that the cement is so hard that the machine to test its breaking point has yet to be invented. Other than that, he can’t divulge specifics, he said, since he was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement as a condition of viewing the plant.

“I went to Minnesota to review the efforts of Beton Consulting at the invitation of Brittany,” Adams said in an email to Environment Hawaiʻi. “I don’t know the exact nature of the relationship, but it was clear to me that there is one and that there is a shared understanding of the technology being developed.”

In June, he told the county Environmental Management Council that he had gone to Minnesota “because that’s where I was told that Yummet was engaged. They had folks that were engaged in the work that was going to make hydrogen in a new way.”

In his email, Adams noted that the county was “in the midst of a Request for Information process that may lead to further procurement actions. At this point, I should step back from a conversation about a potential vendor, other than to say that no decision has been made about what work to pursue, much less about who will do that work.” 

The RFI mentioned by Adams was issued in June by Adams’s department. It seeks “to identify viable climate change mitigation and adaptation opportunities. The county can consider opportunities related to hydrogen, renewable energy, and sustainable infrastructure for a ‘post carbon economy.’ Specific categories include: Solid Waste and Wastewater, Renewable Energy Infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation, Quality of Life, and Everything Else.” Responses were due July 23.

Cory Harden, a community activist with the Big Island chapter of the Sierra Club, had her own encounter with Zimmerman in which Zimmerman sought to impose a non-disclosure agreement as a condition of discussing her proposals.

At the meeting of the Environmental Management Commission, Harden related her experience meeting Zimmerman at a Climate Fair. “I asked if Yummet has any actual projects up and running. She said there were five in several states, but that to get information, I would also have to sign a non-disclosure agreement,” she said.

The EMC Meets

At that June meeting of the Environmental Management Commission, Adams was invited to make a presentation on the technical and economic viability of the Yummet biochar process. Commission members and testifiers gave him a reception that was far more critical and skeptical of Yummet’s claims than the County Council members were three months earlier.

Harden pointed out in her testimony that the County Council meeting seemed to have been rigged in Yummet’s favor. “It skipped the normal review and was fast-tracked to the full County Council,” she said.

Zimmerman has never mentioned a physical corporate headquarters, she said. Harden also challenged Zimmerman’s claim to be able to remove 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from the environment and objected to her proposal to turn green waste into biochar. That, she said, would mean farmers would need to start paying for mulch that would have to be shipped in over thousands of miles and wrapped in plastic.”

Jennifer Navarra, head of Zero Waste Hawaiʻi Island, was also critical of Yummet’s project. “It’s kind of upsetting and concerning that the county seems to be really heading in this direction when there’s been little public input and feedback. … I don’t even understand how it would be possible, considering that we have a contract with Waste Management right now where we owe them a certain amount of tipping fees,” she said.

The materials that Yummet is proposing to transform still have useful lives, she noted. “We don’t need to break metal and glass down to their base components to make them useful,” she said. “We can crush glass, and it’s a commodity we could use on this island. So there’s no need to use such fancy technology and burn our resources basically into biochar.”

In her written testimony, Navarra described some of the drawbacks of biochar. “If we’re burning plastic, the toxics will still be in the biochar, and then we’re spreading that biochar all over our land. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not good.

“So there definitely needs to be some vetting. I know they have their non-disclosure agreement, but we need to know what they’re planning to do and whether it’s safe.”

Adams was asked by the chairwoman of the commission, Georjean Adams (no relation), whether what he saw in Minnesota was proven technology or still R&D?

“I think the answer is both,” he answered, adding, “I should leave the description of Yummet to its CEO. There are a host of partnerships that the company has. And who I had the opportunity to meet were the folks that were involved in concrete development.”

There was no limestone or incineration involved in the production process, he said, unlike more traditional concrete production processes. “What I saw allows me to think that the total process that is being used is essentially product for testing – and then to see the tests themselves is something that is feasible. Not only is it feasible. I saw it in action, and it is also scalable given what they are putting into it.”

Commissioner Michelle Cardwell raised a question about the use of pyrolysis instead of incineration as a way of treating waste. “It’s basically heating without the use of oxygen … so it’s still something where we have to heat things up to a very high temperature. … I think it’s really important not to try and greenwash this and make it seem like it’s something that doesn’t also have consequences.”

She added: “I’m not an engineer, but … I think there might be some simpler solutions.”

In written testimony, further questions were raised about Yummet’s qualifications.

Michele Mitsumori noted that Yummet was said to be “establishing” a production facility. “Does this mean a working facility with a track record of success and safety does not yet exist?” she asked.

“I am concerned that Yummet Earth Solution’s founder/CEO’s online bio lists impressive accomplishments as an astronaut and space professional, but apparently none related to biochar production or production facilities management,” she said. 

“There are many opportunities to improve and expand materials management methods that follow the zero waste hierarchy which prioritizes reduction, reuse, and recycling, not to mention investing in education and the hard work of behavioral change.”

Miriam Gordon, who describes herself as a “reuse activator,” noted that the use of biochar as a soil amendment may negatively affect the growing conditions of microorganisms in the soil and crops and also poses risks to aquatic environments.

The county’s own “Life Cycle Analysis for Recycling” found that overall, “landfilling produces less carbon emissions and incurs less environmental damage costs per ton of materials as compared to incineration,” she pointed out.

— Patricia Tummons

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All Talk, No Interview

Brittany Zimmerman is everywhere these days. The CEO of a company called Yummet (pronounced “you-MAY) is co-host of the Think Tech podcast. She talks to civic groups and holds forth at community fairs and other events, especially on the Big Island. She claims to lead a think tank of “300 of the brightest people on Earth” who are committed to developing “technology to turn waste into valuable resources like green concrete, clean drinking water, biochar, and green hydrogen.”

But as active and visible as she has been in these community fora, she shies away from interviews. Environment Hawaiʻi made repeated requests to her, asking her for a time to talk. The only reply we received was an invitation to her LinkedIn page.

This article is based, then, on statements she has made on her website (yummet.com), in podcasts, and in comments she has made to members of the Hawaiʻi County Council and elsewhere.

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Claims for Yummet

Brittany Zimmerman has made a number of claims on her website and in podcasts and testimony. 

In testimony to the County Council, she stated that she led “very large teams at NASA, Boeing, private organizations, the space community, universities, and the Department of Defense,” among others. Her work for NASA is unconfirmed. However, while she was employed by Paragon Space Development Corporation in Tucson, she was the principal investigator on a relatively small NASA award to research how water could be removed from astronaut feces.

Her claims to work for Boeing and the Department of Defense could not be verified.

She was dismissed from Paragon and later filed a lawsuit against the company alleging sexual discrimination and sexual harassment. The lawsuit appears to have been settled in June of this year.

Her website claims that Yummet is “the only carbon net-negative concrete provider in several markets.” The location of these markets is not provided. The only concrete provider with which she has a public affiliation of some type is the one in Minnesota that county R&D Director Douglass Adams visited last spring. He has stated that it is not a production facility.

In a podcast interview with Smart Living Hawaiʻi host Christina Laney Mitre, Zimmerman said that her company does make hydrogen. “It’s coming from water. You take H₂O and you split it. Often the energy it takes to split is more than you get from hydrogen. So there’s that. You do that in cases where you have excess electrical energy. Say you have a solar system up and you’ve already charged your batteries for the day. A lot of people say, why don’t we break hydrogen and oxygen apart in water?”

On the subject of obtaining carbon credits for the carbon that Yummet claims to sequester, Zimmerman stated that her company is “one of the only organizations that does carbon capture and is profitable without credits or subsidies.”

But, she went on to say, “My CFO will 100 percent agree that it’s silly of us not to take advantage of things while they exist. We should leverage those. So we are in conversations about that. We do remove insane amounts of greenhouse gases.”

On the Big Island, her intent “is to remove more greenhouse gases from the environment than all of the Big Island emits.”

In Hawaiʻi, there appear to be four business entities that Zimmerman has formed. In 2022, she filed papers for Yummet Earth Solutions, LLC, with an address in Volcano. The registered agent is Water Water LLC, which is another company formed by Zimmerman. Neither of these companies is in good standing with the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.

In January 2023, she registered Yummet Consulting, LLC, and listed Water Water LLC as its agent. The business address associated with this company is a home in Hilo owned by Richard Ha.

Also in January, Zimmerman registered Yummet Hawaiʻi, LLC, whose agent is also Water Water and with Richard Ha’s home as her business address.

Although Zimmerman says she has degrees in engineering, she is not a registered engineer in Hawaiʻi. Doug Adams and Ramzi Mansour, cabinet members in the Hawaiʻi County administration, told Environment Hawaiʻi that they do not believe she is licensed in any other state.

Zimmerman claims that she produces green hydrogen, a claim that requires third-party verification. No such verification could be found – indeed, there is no evidence that she or her companies produce any color of hydrogen.

On her website, Zimmerman claims that she has the first technology to produce fresh water through desalination and wastewater treatment without producing “brine nor waste.” Without knowing the physical location of her desalination and wastewater treatment plant, this claim is impossible to verify.

She also claims that her operation is being reimbursed for its biochar production by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Again, without knowing where the biochar is produced and used, the claim is unverifiable.

— Patricia Tummons