Speakers

Candice Anderson

   Candice has just recently completed a Master in Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research interests lie within urban environmental public policies and programs with a particular focus on zero waste initiatives. The majority of her research has focused on the implementation of zero waste goals in San Francisco and how these compare to the theoretical concept of zero waste as expressed by the grassroots community.
   She completed an undergraduate degree in Media, Information and Technoculture, from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, followed by a career within the Canadian cancer community researching and facilitating the development of cancer screening programs.
   Candice balances interests in logistical and sociological elements to determine how environmental policy objectives can be successfully transformed into operational programs with a concentration on factors that optimize citizen engagement and participation.

Jon Angin

   Jon Angin serves as Vice President Sales and Marketing for Agilyx Corporation, a waste plastic to oil technology provider. He is a twenty-five year veteran of the solid waste and recycling industry where he has taken a leadership role in assisting both municipalities and the private sector in taking their solid waste management strategies to the “next level” by strongly advocating the elements of sustainability and environmental stewardship through new technologies.
   Jon has held senior leadership positions with both Norcal Waste Systems (now known as Recology) and Waste Management, where he served as their Northwest Region Vice President. He also founded Columbia Business Resources, a consulting firm engaged in strategic planning and business improvement activities in the solid waste and renewable energy sectors. During his career, Jon has taken a leadership role in more than seventy business acquisitions and hundreds of municipal proposals, rate applications and new program implementation projects.

Michael Cant

   Michael is a Principal and the Canadian Waste Sector Leader for Golder Associates. He has been working with municipal and private sector clients on waste management projects for over 20 years. Michael recently has been involved in the permitting of the York/Durham Energy Centre, a P3 application for an Anaerobic Digestion facility in British Columbia, a feasibility study and business case for a Mechanical Biological Treatment facility for the City of Toronto and a Residual Waste Management Planning Study for the Region of Waterloo. Michael sits on the Executive Committee of the OWMA and is a member of the Recycling Council of Alberta, Recycling Council of British Columbia and the Canadian Energy from Waste Coalition. He is a contributing editor of Solid Waste and Recycling Magazine.

Dave Douglas

   Dave Douglas has been involved in the Canadian solid waste management industry for over twenty-three years working in both the public and private sector, having first obtained a degree in Environmental Studies from Trent University (1988). As founder of VisionQuest Environmental Strategies with offices in Aurora (Ontario) and Montreal (Quebec), Dave and his team are involved in supporting clients with the development and implementation of waste management diversion strategies for recyclables, organics, electronics, plastics, etc., as well as Zero Waste Strategies and corporate EPR & stewardship obligation fulfilment. When not working, Dave spends family time with his wife and two kids enjoying skiing, boating and travelling to exotic corners of the world – recently an ECO trip to Costa Rica where they spent time rolling around in the volcanic mud baths.

Jim Evanoff

   Jim has been with the US National Park Service for the past 32 years. His career has involved working in four other National Parks before coming to Yellowstone in 1988. Starting in Curecanti National Recreation area, Colorado, Jim was instrumental in developing the infrastructure for this newly acquired Park unit. Next he moved to Grand Teton National Park and was responsible for preservation of over 100 historic structures within the park. After working there for 3 years, Jim transferred to Arches National Park in southern Utah. The next move was to Mt. Rushmore in the Black Hills of South Dakota, where his responsibilities included the preservation maintenance of the famous four faces. While in Yellowstone, Jim was the Environmental Protection Specialist for the Park. His work experiences have varied from assisting in wolf reintroduction to spearheading many of the Park’s “greening initiatives”. Jim managed many of Yellowstone’s environmental programs and continues to provide guidance to other national parks for achieving sound environmental stewardship. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin.

Robert Haley

   Robert Haley has a Management Science degree from UC San Diego. As a manager of a manufacturing firm, he demonstrated that waste prevention and recycling can increase profits. He then served as Operations Manager for Solana Recyclers and Recycling Manager at the County of Hawaii. Robert has now been with the City and County of San Francisco for 18 years and is the Zero Waste Manager for the Department of the Environment.

Joseph Hall

   Joe currently is the principal of Redi Recycling Inc. providing consulting and executive director services to a variety of clients. Joe has been directly involved with extended producer responsibility programs, environmental stewardship, hazardous and solid non-hazardous waste reduction, reuse, recycling, composting and disposal since 1988. He is attending the RCA Conference representing the Canadian Carpet Recovery Effort. He is the Executive Director of this national industry group and has been working with the CCRE since September 2011 to establish a national diversion network.

Art Johnston

   Art is a graduate of the Lethbridge College Civil Engineering Technology Program and in 2005 was the bestowed the college’s Distinguished Alumni Award. Prior to college, he was in highway contracting industry for 9 years. He has been with EBA for over 25 years, where he currently holds the position of Principal in EBA's Transportation Practice.
   One of Art's ongoing mandates has been to keep abreast of the latest developments in pavements technology, and to effectively deliver this expertise to clients. He has built a reputation on providing practical, cost-effective solutions to clients within various transportation sectors. In addition to holding positions with various organizations, Art is a Past-President of the Canadian Technical Asphalt Association.

David Lawes

   David is Manager of the BC Ministry of Environment’s Industry Product Stewardship section, the provincial department that develops solid and liquid waste policy and Extended Producer Responsibility programs for BC. BC has recently been recognized as having the best EPR programs and policies in Canada. David represents BC on the Canadian Council of Ministers of Environment Packaging Reduction Working Group.
   David holds a degree in Environmental Science from Royal Roads University (RRU) and is currently completing the MBA program at RRU.

Geoff Love

   Geoff Love has worked as a consultant in in the field of extended producer responsibility, recycling and waste diversion for over 30 years. He has worked on recycling/diversion projects in every province in Canada and has also worked extensively throughout the US and Europe. Geoff's experience includes design, implementation and evaluation of recycling plans and programs; environmental policy development and strategic planning for a variety of “steward companies”; and business planning, implementation and operations support to Canada’s first industry funded organization for printed paper and packaging. Along with Duncan Bury, Geoff is a co-founder of Extended Producer Responsibility Canada.

Barbara McConnell

   Barbara is a communication specialist who has created award-winning promotion and education outreach for solid waste diversion programs since the mid-1980s. Working for the public and private sectors, her P&E expertise spans a broad range of social marketing prompts as well as full-scale radio and television commercials, all designed to motivate waste reduction and increase diversion in recycling, organics, HHW, electronics and more. Along with her work in waste management communications, she is a member of EPR Canada, an organization which recently released a report card on the status of Extended Producer Responsibility legislation across Canada. Barbara will be representing RecyclingCalendars.com, a company with operations in both Canada and the United States that offers educational outreach tools for municipal solid waste programs including recycling calendars and the 'my-waste' mobile app for smartphones and tablets. She will be talking about the exploding world of mobile technology and how we can put it to work for our municipal solid waste outreach programs.

Carey McIver

   Carey McIver is the Manager of Solid Waste for the Regional District of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, BC. As Manager she is responsible for solid waste planning, diversion programs and disposal facilities. Under her leadership the RDN has implemented an award-winning Zero Waste Program with an impressive 70% diversion rate; retrofitted, re-developed and expanded an existing transfer station to achieve LEED Canada Gold certification; and, been an early adopter in landfill gas management practices, resulting in the creation of the Nanaimo Bioenergy Centre. During her 20-year career with the RDN, Carey has served as President of the Recycling Council of BC, Chair of the Coast Waste Management Association, and has currently returned to the RCBC Board as a Director.
   In 2006, Carey led an RDN technical team on two FCM-funded missions to Ghana, West Africa, to develop a solid waste management plan for the City of Sunyani. Following these missions, Carey joined the Rotary Club of Nanaimo, and 2009 she lead a team of Rotarians back to Sunyani to develop a program to meet humanitarian needs in that community. Since then she has been instrumental in obtaining over $200,000 in Rotary funding for projects in Sunyani. In the last year, on behalf of Environment Canada, Carey has attended workshops with government representatives in Chile and Colombia, to explore opportunities to work together on the design and implementation of climate change mitigation actions related to solid waste management and landfill gas.

Dave Merredew

   Dave has been the Leader of Community and Customer Initiatives with the City of Calgary Waste & Recycling Services for the past 4 years. In this position he has lead multiple education and social marketing campaigns aimed at increasing waste diversion. Dave has a Masters in Environmental Studies from York University and is completing his PhD in Secondary Education at the University of Alberta.

Clarissa Morawski

   CM Consulting is founded on the principle that industry and consumers must assume greater responsibility for ensuring that the manufacture, use, reuse and recycling of products and packaging has a minimum impact on the environment.
   Clarissa Morawski is a Canadian leading expert on extended producer responsibility. Since 1994, she has undertaken a wide array of stewardship assignments related to packaging, HMSW, WEEE, and organics for public and private sector clients.
   More recently, CM Consulting has began publishing comprehensive reports which document program performance and costs in Canada for various materials. Clarissa has introduced new levels of accountability and credibility to stewardship management of materials, and has applied statistical techniques to clearly delineate effective from less effective mechanisms for achieving stewardship goals.
   Clarissa has written over 60 articles for Canadian and US trade publications since 1998 on materials management; she is a noted speaker at conferences in North America; and has been teaching materials management at Trent University in Ontario since 2009.

Nia Owen

   Nia is a Senior Technical Consultant within AEA's Waste Management and Resource Efficiency team. Nia leads AEA's work on resource productivity and specialises in waste auditing for the private and public sector, local authority recycling and treatment technologies particularly material recovery facilities and options appraisal. She is an Environmental Engineer and Chartered Waste Manager with over eight years experience in the waste management sector. Nia holds a PhD in MRF design and performance, from Cardiff University and as part of this research visited and reviewed a number of MRFs across the UK, Europe and the USA, with the aim being to assess various types of equipment and process configuration in both clean and dirty MRF operations in order to evaluate the use of MRFs as a means of meeting national waste strategy requirements in Wales.
   Nia has an excellent understanding of waste policy and legislation in the devolved administrations across the UK, as well as European waste policy and legislation having delivered a range of projects for Zero Waste Scotland, Welsh Government, and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which is an advisory body funded by the devolved administrations. The projects she has been involved in has ranged from food waste, recyclate quality, recycling on the go, textiles, and resource efficiency in the public sector and private sector (including manufacturing and hospitality sectors).
   Nia joined AEA from the Waste Regulation Policy team within the Environment Agency, and thus has an excellent understanding of waste legislation in the UK. Whilst at the Environment Agency, she also worked on the Waste Protocols Programme, which developed end of waste criteria for a range of waste streams, in order to encourage their use as a resource. Nia led on the development of these criteria for a range of waste streams including anaerobic digestate, paper sludge ash, and waste plasterboard.

Jerry Powell

   Jerry Powell is the owner of three magazines (Resource Recycling, Plastics Recycling Update and E-Scrap News). He edits Resource Recycling. In addition, he aids in the management of three annual conferences, The E-Scrap Conference and Exhibition, The Plastics Recycling Conference and Exhibition, and The Resource Recycling Conference and Exhibition, several of which are the world’s largest in their fields.
   Previously, Jerry founded and managed a recycling consulting firm for a decade and founded and managed a recycling business in Portland, Oregon, for more than eight years.
   He is a past three-time chair of the board of the National Recycling Coalition and the three-time chair of the board of a state recycling association. He has spoken on waste management and recycling issues in 48 states and five Canadian provinces.
   In addition, Jerry is a shareholder in a National Football League team.

Christine Ronning

   Christine Ronning is the Coordinator for Reduction & Recycling for the Lower Mainland Health Authorities. She has led the implementation of a standardized Recycling Renewal program in numerous acute and residential care sites over the past 2 years. Christine has worked in the healthcare field for over 7 years and has experience with staff engagement, program evaluation and strategic planning.

Elizabeth (Liz) Shoch

   Liz joined GreenBlue in 2008 as a Project Manager for both the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and the Closing the Loop project, coming from a natural resource conservation and policy background. Liz’s work primarily focuses on packaging end of life, including recovery system infrastructure, recycling, and composting, as well as Extended Producer Responsibility and other influential packaging legislation. Liz was previously Invasive Species Program Specialist at the US Geological Survey and Program Coordinator for the Global Invasive Species Initiative at the Nature Conservancy. She has also consulted on issues relating to both non-native invasive species and migratory species for the Commission for Environmental Cooperation of North America. Liz has a Master of Environmental Management degree from Duke University, where she focused on the growing environmental issue of non-native invasive species, and a BS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University. While completing her Master’s research, Liz learned to identify all of the terrestrial plants of Bermuda. Liz was also a White House intern during her undergraduate studies.

Jo-Anne St. Godard

   Jo-Anne has been with the Recycling Council of Ontario for 12 years, the past 10 as Executive Director. With the RCO, Jo-Anne has played a key role in furthering the waste reduction and recycling mandate in Ontario and beyond. Working with the RCO's multi-stakeholder membership, Jo-Anne works directly with local and provincial governments to develop informed and effective, outcomes-based waste reduction policies and programs. She also works with businesses and industry to help them understand and leverage opportunity from their environmental obligations and business models.
   With RCO, Jo-Anne supports markets-based solutions that drive the best outcomes under the most progressive environmental standards. In that regard, she was the founder and creator of a procurement-based stewardship program called Take Back the Light which has collected more than 5 million mercury-containing lamps, a program that works in the absence of regulation but leverages procurement requirements in the supply chain. Using that same markets-based approach, Jo-Anne is here to provide details on RCO's newly launched waste diversion certification program, 3RCertified…a first of its kind in North America.

Paul van der Werf

   Paul van der Werf, M.Sc., MCIWM, President and Owner of 2cg Inc., was educated at the University of Guelph, where he received a B.Sc. in 1988 and a M.Sc. in 1992. In 2010, he received extensive training in Sustainability Planning through the Natural Step program.
   Paul is a recognized waste management expert with more than 20 years of national and international professional experience.
   2cg provides consulting services including waste auditing and waste diversion planning that features strong expertise in composting and recycling as well as sustainability planning. Paul has been providing consulting services to the public and private sectors in Canada, Europe and the Caribbean, since 1996.
   Paul has assumed many leadership roles in the organic waste management industry. He was a long time Board member and former chair of the Composting Council of Canada. He was a founding member and chair of the Composting Association of Ireland. He is currently a Board member for the Ontario Waste Management Association. As co-chair of their Organics Management Committee, he is helping develop positions on issues regarding organic waste management that includes a growing focus on energy capture. He is an inaugural member and the current chair of the Mayor’s Sustainable Energy Council (London, ON) that includes a focus on the generation of energy from organic wastes.
   Paul is the current columnist for “Organic Matters” and a contributing editor for Solid Waste & Recycling magazine. He has written over 100 articles on waste management for various publications.

Terry Van Kampen

   Terry is the Vice President of Manufacturing for Bridon Cordage LLC, the world's premier manufacturer of polypropylene agricultural baler twine. Bridon has been in the business for over 36 years and Terry has been working there for 34 of those years.
   Terry grew up working on the family farm in Southern Minnesota, joining Bridon in 1978. He started out on the factory floor and has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility before becoming Bridon's VP of Manufacturing in 1997.
   Terry has been instrumental in recapturing scrap twine and waste materials from the very beginning. He started out by collecting all of the plastic waste generated by the factory and sending it out to be reprocessed into usable pellets for new twine production.
   As Bridon Cordage grew to become the world's largest twine producer, Terry noticed many of their customers had concerns about what to do with their post-consumer twine. At the time, most users were either burning it on their farms or having it hauled off to the landfills.
   In the early 2000s, he set out to procure equipment that would not only recapture Bridon's own waste and process it into pellets, but also to process the post-consumer twine into re-usable pellets.
   At the time, there was abundant availability of equipment to capture and process Bridon's own waste but there was nothing available to actually recycle post-consumer baler twine into twine. There simply were NO companies out there with equipment capable of washing and cleaning dirty twine that could be fed into a pelletizer and produce an acceptable product.
   After years of trial and error utilizing different pieces of equipment from vastly different industries, Terry and Bridon's engineers cobbled together an "assembly line" of chopping, washing, and drying equipment to manufacture plastic pellets that could be used in Bridon's twine production.
   Bridon, along with its sister company, Gopher Plastics, is the only twine manufacturer in the world today that is manufacturing twine from twine. It is expensive, it is difficult, but it is the right thing to do.

Kellie Walters

   Kellie Walters will present at the Wide World of Waste conference as one of Australia's leading sustainability practitioners. After spending 15 years in key government sustainability roles, she now heads the Australian NGO, Zero Waste Australia.
   ZWA's mission is to advise, coach, facilitate, fund, cajole and persuade Australian businesses and households to adopt new sustainability practices in relation to waste. Kellie's strengths lie in translating government programs, funding and regulation into economically viable business opportunities in the sustainability sector.
   Kellie and the ZWA team firmly believe that there is no future in waste management - the future is about eliminating waste from the world's production streams.

Michal Wasuita

   Michal Wasuita was born and raised in Jasper, Alberta, and has lived there for 50+ years of his life, 16 years as owner/operator of the family business (established 1978), offering seasonal bungalow accommodation at Pine Bungalows. His interests and goals center around sustainable tourism with a focus on education of green initiatives and practices. Pine Bungalows has one of the most extensive recycling programs in Jasper and is the proud recipient of the 2009 Travel Alberta Alto Award for Sustainable Tourism.
   Michal is a volunteer on the board of the Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee (ESAC) in Jasper which acts as a cooperative link between citizens, Parks Canada and local government to provide leadership and guidance to the Jasper Environmental Stewardship Program. Enhancing quality of life in Jasper through effective environmental stewardship promotion is a key priority and the committee provides a public perspective to environmental stewardship initiatives.
   Michal has experience in public speaking on various topics regarding waste management and best practices, with audiences ranging from the local schools to various meetings and conferences. His vast personal experience, knowledge and best practices in a National Park ~ cycle of life ~ sky, water, plants and animals ~ is at the forefront of his personal and professional goals.

Sarah Webb

   Sarah Webb has experience in the environmental field, working closely with industry, government and non-governmental organizations.
   Her first job after graduating from the University of Guelph with a Bachelor of Science (Environmental), was to establish a national aerosol recycling program and to support the development of this program at the municipal level. Since that time, she has been involved in various initiatives to bring municipal and industrial sector partners together to advance a wide-range of waste management and stewardship alternatives.
   Specifically, Sarah began working in the retail sector in early 2004 and has been responsible for ensuring compliance with various product, waste and packaging regulations. She is currently the Manager of Product & Environmental Stewardship Programs for Canadian Tire Corporation, with specific responsibilities for leading its numerous product stewardship initiatives and waste management. Sarah has worked collaboratively with industry and government representatives to advance key recycling and waste management programs with various committees: Environmental committee of the Retail Council of Canada, Waste Diversion Ontario (household special waste/electronic recycling), Stewardship Ontario, Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, and the Recycling Council of Ontario. Sarah is also on the Board of Directors for Ontario Tire Stewardship and Product Care Association and a member of the Alberta Recycling Tire Industry Council.

Neil Wiens

   Neil Wiens is the owner and President of Bio-Cycle Nutrient Solutions Ltd near Calgary, Alberta. He has spent the last eight years recovering and marketing nutrients diverted from Alberta landfills and local Agricultural operations. Neil currently markets over 75,000 tonnes of soil amendment manufactured from manures, urban organics, biosolids, drywall and wood waste. Over the past few years, Neil has assisted in the development of the “Full Circle” concept that incorporates a full life cycle approach to nutrient recovery. Neil is a Certified Compost Facility Operator and sat on the Leaf and Yard Waste Diversion committee for the Province of Alberta. His company is directly involved in the current “Green Cart” pilot project with the City of Calgary.