49 Influential Thought Leaders in Waste Collection and Recycling Services

In 2022, the world generated 2.56 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste, a figure the World Bank projects could rise to 3.86 billion tonnes by 2050. About 30 percent of global waste is still openly dumped or left uncollected, creating major risks for public health, climate, waterways, and local economies. The global waste management market is now estimated at around USD 1.5 to 1.6 trillion in 2026 across most major industry analyses, with forecasts of USD 2 trillion or more by the mid-2030s. Behind every kerbside bin, every materials recovery facility, every container deposit scheme, and every extended producer responsibility law, there are people making the case, designing the systems, writing the policy, and pushing the science forward.

This is a list of 49 people who are doing exactly that. They are journalists who have spent careers documenting the sector, executives running the largest operators, policy architects designing the rules that govern packaging across 34 US states and the District of Columbia, scientists whose research underpins the global plastics treaty, entrepreneurs commercialising AI-driven sorting, and advocates whose work has shifted public understanding of what waste actually is.

This list spans eight categories: journalists and storytellers, circular economy and policy architects, industry executives and operators, innovators and technologists, researchers and academics, advocates and educators, communicators and content creators, and global voices working in markets that often get overlooked in Western coverage. Some are household names within the sector. Others are working in technical detail that rarely makes the broader press. All of them have a documented track record that you can verify and follow.

Why This Matters Right Now

The next decade in waste and recycling is going to be defined by three forces colliding at once. Extended producer responsibility laws are spreading rapidly, with the Product Stewardship Institute tracking more than 150 EPR laws across 22 product categories in 34 US states plus the District of Columbia. Packaging EPR specifically is now law in a smaller group of states including California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Oregon, and Washington, with implementation timelines stretching across the rest of the decade. Deposit return schemes now operate in more than 50 countries, with new programs launching in Ireland, Romania, Hungary, and parts of Australia in the past two years. And the electronics waste crisis continues to grow, with the Global E-waste Monitor estimating that more than USD 60 billion in recoverable materials is lost to landfill and informal burning every year.

At the same time, the global plastics treaty process remains unresolved after INC-5.2 in Geneva ended without agreement in August 2025, with the next session expected to continue work in 2026. The EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, formally adopted in December 2024, has most provisions applying from August 2026. AI-driven sorting technology is also moving from pilot facilities to commercial scale. The leaders on this list are the ones whose work you need to track if you want to understand where this is heading.

How This List Was Compiled

The selection criteria focused on documented contribution rather than social media footprint. To be included, a person needed to have a verifiable body of work in the waste, recycling, or circular economy space, an active role as of 2025 or 2026, and either a position of operational scale, a published research record, a journalistic track record covering the sector, or a documented policy or campaign achievement that shifted outcomes.

The list deliberately spans operational executives, policy architects, journalists, researchers, advocates, and educators because the sector requires all of those functions to work. A brilliant circular economy policy without a journalist to explain it, a researcher to measure it, an executive to operationalise it, or an advocate to defend it tends to die quietly. The categories below reflect that breadth.

Geographic coverage is global, with strength in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and parts of Asia and Africa. The list is not ranked. Position one is a journalist whose books are widely read in the sector, not a claim that he is more influential than the WM chief operating officer further down. The numbering is for navigation only.

Category 1: Journalists and Storytellers

1. Adam Minter | Bloomberg Opinion

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the author of two books that have shaped how the sector talks about itself, Junkyard Planet and Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale. His reporting traces the global flows of scrap metal, electronics, used clothing, and other recovered materials, with particular depth on the markets of China, Southeast Asia, and West Africa.

What makes Minter's work valuable is that he treats the people working in informal recycling as serious economic actors rather than as case studies in environmental harm. His books are widely cited in policy work and academic research, and Secondhand is now considered essential reading on the global second-hand goods economy. His Bloomberg Opinion columns continue to cover a broad range of topics, with his sector commentary appearing in long-form features and the books that grow out of them.

2. Oliver Franklin-Wallis | British GQ and Author

Oliver Franklin-Wallis is Features Director at British GQ and the author of Wasteland: The Dirty Truth About What We Throw Away, Where It Goes and Why It Matters, published by Simon & Schuster in 2023. The book draws on extensive reporting from landfills in Ghana, e-waste sites in India, textile mountains in Chile, and recycling facilities across Europe and the United States, and was widely reviewed as one of the best books on the subject in the past decade.

His longform journalism for British GQ, Wired, and The Guardian has covered the human stories behind global waste flows with a level of access and detail that few reporters in the sector match. Wasteland in particular has become a recommended text in university circular economy and environmental policy programs, and his ongoing work continues to shape how a general audience understands what happens to the things they throw away.

3. Cole Rosengren | Waste Dive

Cole Rosengren is Managing Editor at Waste Dive, which has become the definitive trade publication for the North American waste and recycling sector. His coverage spans EPR rollouts, MRF technology, hauler consolidation, organics policy, and the regulatory landscape around PFAS and chemical recycling, and his work is regularly cited by industry leaders, policy analysts, and academic researchers.

What sets Rosengren apart is his sustained presence on the beat. He has been writing about the sector for more than a decade, which gives his analysis a longitudinal quality that newer entrants cannot match. He also co-hosts the be Waste Wise webinar series alongside other Waste Dive editors, which has become a key forum for sector practitioners to discuss policy and operational developments in close to real time.

4. Megan Quinn | Waste Dive

Megan Quinn is Senior Reporter at Waste Dive, with a focus on extended producer responsibility, organics, and recycling infrastructure. Her work has been particularly strong on the rollout of state EPR programs in Oregon, Colorado, California, Maine, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland, and on the operational challenges of integrating new programs with existing kerbside infrastructure.

Her December 2025 reporting on the Amp deal in southern Virginia, which involves a 20-year contract to divert 50 percent of regional waste from landfill using AI sorting, was one of the more detailed pieces of operational coverage to come out of the sector in recent months. She publishes regularly across the major waste streams and has become one of the reporters that EPR program leads, MRF operators, and packaging compliance scheme executives read first for context on new developments.

5. Stefanie Valentic | Resource Recycling and Stef Talks Trash

Stefanie Valentic is Reporter and Copy Editor at Resource Recycling, having moved from her previous role at Waste360. She is also the founder and host of Stef Talks Trash, an independent podcast covering the waste and recycling sector that now operates as its own LLC. The podcast has published more than 47 episodes featuring interviews with operators, policymakers, advocates, and entrepreneurs across the industry.

Her work blends the editorial discipline of trade publication writing with the more conversational depth that podcasting allows. She has been particularly strong on the worker safety side of the industry, on women in waste leadership, and on the cultural shifts inside legacy operators as they navigate the transition to a more circular materials economy. The combination of her journalistic and podcast platforms gives her a uniquely connected vantage point on the sector.

6. Jacob Wallace | Waste Dive

Jacob Wallace is an Editor at Waste Dive, where he covers renewable natural gas, PFAS regulation, and the policy landscape around recycling infrastructure. He holds a bachelor's and master's degree in journalism from American University and has been actively publishing across the major sector beats throughout 2025 and 2026. His byline appears regularly on Waste Dive's coverage of regulatory developments and operational stories from across North America.

Wallace also co-hosts the be Waste Wise webinar series alongside Cole Rosengren and Megan Quinn, which has positioned him as one of the editorial voices most engaged with practitioner audiences. His work is read closely by hauler executives, MRF operators, and policy analysts looking for accurate technical coverage of fast-moving regulatory developments, particularly around the intersection of waste and emerging environmental regulation.

Category 2: Circular Economy and Policy Architects

7. Keefe Harrison | The Recycling Partnership

Keefe Harrison is the founding CEO of The Recycling Partnership, which she launched in 2014 and has built into one of the most influential organisations in US recycling policy and infrastructure. The Partnership works with municipalities, packaging brands, and policymakers to improve kerbside recycling participation, reduce contamination, and design EPR programs that actually function at scale, and has invested more than USD 100 million in recycling infrastructure across the United States.

In April 2026 the Partnership announced that Harrison will step down as CEO in July 2026 after more than a decade leading the organisation. Her body of work, particularly the Partnership's data-driven approach to measuring kerbside performance and her advocacy for well-designed EPR programs, has shaped how brands, haulers, and municipal leaders talk about recycling system change. The Partnership's next chapter will be defined by whether the model she built can scale beyond her tenure.

8. Scott Cassel | Product Stewardship Institute

Scott Cassel founded the Product Stewardship Institute in 2000 and has served as its CEO ever since. PSI has become the central US clearinghouse for extended producer responsibility policy, tracking more than 150 EPR laws across 22 product categories in 34 US states plus the District of Columbia, and providing technical assistance to state legislators, brands, and producer responsibility organisations as new programs are designed and implemented.

Cassel's particular contribution has been to translate the European EPR experience into US legislative language, working state by state with policymakers who often start from limited prior context. PSI's research, model legislation, and policy convenings have shaped programs in Maine, Oregon, Colorado, California, Washington, Minnesota, Maryland, and the dozens of other states now actively considering packaging EPR. He is one of the few people in the sector whose name appears in nearly every major US EPR bill of the past two decades.

9. Ranjit Baxi | Global Recycling Foundation

Ranjit Baxi is the founding President of the Global Recycling Foundation and the architect of Global Recycling Day, which is now observed on 18 March each year by recycling industry organisations, governments, and educational institutions across more than 100 countries. The Foundation campaigns for recycling to be recognised internationally as the seventh resource alongside air, water, soil, oil, gas, and minerals, and supports educational and infrastructure projects in developing markets.

A former President of the Bureau of International Recycling, Baxi has spent decades building the global recycling industry as a coordinated international community. The Foundation's annual Recycling Heroes campaign has profiled hundreds of individuals working in formal and informal recycling around the world, and the broader Global Recycling Day platform has become one of the most successful sector advocacy initiatives of the past decade.

10. Heidi Sanborn | National Stewardship Action Council

Heidi Sanborn is the founding Executive Director of the National Stewardship Action Council, which she launched to coordinate the growing community of US product stewardship advocates pushing for EPR legislation. Based in California, NSAC has played a central role in the design of California SB 54, the state's landmark packaging EPR law, and has supported advocates in other states navigating the legislative process.

Sanborn has more than three decades of experience in California waste and recycling policy, including extensive work with the California Product Stewardship Council before founding NSAC. Her testimony in legislative hearings, her writing on EPR design choices, and her direct work with state policymakers have made her one of the most effective US advocates for producer responsibility legislation. She is one of the people brands talk to early when a new state EPR bill is being drafted.

11. David Allaway | Oregon Department of Environmental Quality

David Allaway is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, where he leads work on materials management, sustainable consumption and production, and greenhouse gas accounting for the waste sector. He has been one of the central architects of Oregon's approach to packaging EPR, which became law in 2021 under SB 582 and is now in implementation as one of the first US state EPR programs to launch operations.

Allaway's particular contribution has been to insist that the environmental case for recycling be made on rigorous life cycle assessment grounds rather than on assumption. His work on the carbon footprint of waste management options, on the limits of recycling as a climate solution, and on the design of EPR programs that prioritise upstream packaging reduction has shaped Oregon's regulatory approach and influenced policy thinking in other states and at the federal level.

12. Danielle Waterfield | AMERIPEN

Danielle Waterfield is Policy Director and General Counsel at AMERIPEN, the American Institute for Packaging and the Environment, which represents major US packaging brands and producers on extended producer responsibility, packaging policy, and circular economy regulation. Her January 2026 commentary in Packaging World on the federal Packaging and Claims Knowledge (PACK) Act marked her as one of the sector's leading voices on the next wave of US packaging legislation.

Waterfield has been at the centre of US producer engagement on state EPR rollouts in California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, Maryland, and Washington, and on the harmonisation challenges that come with multiple state programs operating in parallel. AMERIPEN's policy positions, often shaped by her work, are read closely by state legislators, producer responsibility organisations, and the broader compliance community as they navigate the rapidly shifting regulatory landscape.

13. Ron Gonen | Closed Loop Partners

Ron Gonen is the founder and CEO of Closed Loop Partners, which he established in 2014 and has built into the largest private investor in US recycling and circular economy infrastructure, with more than USD 400 million deployed across recycling infrastructure, advanced recycling technology, and circular economy businesses. Before founding Closed Loop, he served as New York City's first Deputy Commissioner for Recycling and Sustainability under Mayor Bloomberg.

His 2021 book The Waste-Free World argued that the circular economy is the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century, and the book has become widely cited reading for executives, policymakers, and investors looking to understand the commercial case for circular materials. Closed Loop's investments span MRF infrastructure, food waste recovery, textile circularity, and packaging redesign, and the firm's portfolio companies now represent a meaningful share of US private sector recycling capacity.

14. Kate Daly | Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners

Kate Daly is Managing Partner and CEO of the Center for the Circular Economy at Closed Loop Partners, which she has built into one of the most active circular economy innovation platforms in the world. The Center runs structured industry consortia on packaging, food, and other material streams, bringing brands, retailers, and the recycling industry together to solve specific circular economy challenges through pre-competitive collaboration.

Daly's particular contribution has been to make the circular economy practical at the brand level, designing the consortium model in a way that produces working prototypes and operational pilots rather than just research reports. The Center's work on reusable packaging, on the Beyond the Bag Initiative addressing single-use plastic bags, and on textile circularity has shaped how major brands like Walmart, Target, and CVS approach circular economy strategy. She is one of the people corporate sustainability executives call when they want to move from commitment to implementation.

15. Rob Kaplan | Circulate Capital

Rob Kaplan is Founder and CEO of Circulate Capital, the first investment management firm focused specifically on financing infrastructure to prevent ocean plastic pollution in South and Southeast Asia. The firm has raised significant capital from corporate partners including PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Dow, Danone, Chevron Phillips Chemical, and Unilever, and has invested in waste collection and recycling enterprises across India, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and beyond.

Before founding Circulate Capital, Kaplan led Walmart's sustainability work for several years and built a deep understanding of how multinational supply chains can either drive or block circular economy outcomes. His investment thesis, that the highest-leverage interventions in ocean plastic are upstream in collection and sortation in fast-growing emerging markets, has shaped how brand-side capital is now flowing into the sector. The firm's portfolio companies are now among the most significant private sector waste collection businesses in the regions where they operate.

16. Eva Goulbourne | Littlefoot Ventures

Eva Goulbourne is founder of Littlefoot Ventures and was named to the Waste360 2025 Changemaker class for her work building the food systems and circular economy investment thesis at the intersection of food waste, regenerative agriculture, and supply chain innovation. Her firm focuses on early-stage capital for businesses working to reduce food waste at scale, with portfolio companies operating across the food supply chain.

Before founding Littlefoot, Goulbourne worked on food waste strategy at multiple levels, including with brands, foundations, and policy advocates. Her particular contribution has been to argue that food waste investment requires capital that understands both the operational economics of food systems and the climate accounting that drives institutional interest in the space. She is now one of the people that food waste entrepreneurs and food brand circular economy leads talk to early in their funding cycles.

17. Anna Tari | Circular Economy Club

Anna Tari is Founder and CEO of the Circular Economy Club, which she founded in 2012 as the largest international network of circular economy professionals. CEC now operates more than 280 local clubs in 140 countries, with members working in business, academia, government, and civil society. The Club's local chapters run pro bono mapping projects, education programs, and policy advocacy in their cities and regions.

Tari was named a UN Environment Programme Young Champion of the Earth for North America in 2019, and received the Ibero-American Youth Award from the Prime Minister of Spain in 2018. Her contribution has been to build the circular economy as a globally connected practitioner community rather than as a series of disconnected national initiatives, and the network model she designed continues to grow through volunteer-led local leadership in cities from Lagos to Lima.

18. Sander Defruyt | Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Sander Defruyt is the Plastics Strategy Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, where he leads the New Plastics Economy initiative, which has built the most comprehensive global voluntary commitment framework for circular packaging. The signatories represent more than 20 percent of all plastic packaging used globally and report annually on progress against shared 2025 and 2030 targets covering recycled content, reusable packaging, and elimination of problematic plastics.

Defruyt's particular contribution has been to make ambitious voluntary commitments measurable and transparent. The annual New Plastics Economy progress reports have become a key accountability mechanism for global packaging brands, and his commentary on the Pew Charitable Trusts' Breaking the Plastic Wave 2025 report acknowledged both the progress made and the scale of the challenge that remains. He is one of the central voices in the global conversation about how voluntary commitments and regulation can work together to deliver circular packaging outcomes.

Category 3: Industry Executives and Operators

19. Mikela Druckman | Greyparrot

Mikela Druckman is the founder and CEO of Greyparrot, the UK-based AI sorting technology company whose computer vision systems now operate in materials recovery facilities across Europe, the United States, and Asia. The technology provides real-time composition analysis of mixed waste streams, allowing MRF operators to measure what is actually moving through their facilities and to identify high-value materials that current sorting systems miss.

The company's data is now reshaping how the sector talks about MRF performance, contamination, and the economics of mechanical recycling. Druckman has become one of the most visible faces of recycling technology, regularly presenting at major industry events and contributing to policy discussions about the role of AI in circular economy infrastructure. Greyparrot's partnerships with major equipment manufacturers and large MRF operators have positioned the company as one of the most consequential recycling technology businesses of the current cycle.

20. Paul Nowak | GreenBlue

Paul Nowak is Executive Director of GreenBlue, the non-profit that hosts the Sustainable Packaging Coalition and the How2Recycle labelling program. Under his leadership, GreenBlue continues to operate as one of the most important neutral conveners in US packaging, bringing together brands, retailers, recyclers, and policymakers around the technical work of designing packaging that can actually be recovered at scale.

How2Recycle, the on-pack recycling label now used by hundreds of major brands, has become the de facto US labelling standard and is increasingly referenced in state EPR program design. The Sustainable Packaging Coalition's working groups on flexible film, polypropylene, and other challenging material streams have shaped industry roadmaps for the next decade of packaging recovery. Nowak's quiet, technical leadership of these programs continues the legacy of careful sector convening that GreenBlue has built over more than two decades.

21. John Shegerian | ERI

John Shegerian is the Chairman, CEO, and Co-Founder of ERI, the largest fully integrated IT and electronics asset disposition provider in the United States and one of the leading e-waste recyclers in the world. The company processes more than a billion pounds of electronic waste annually across eight processing facilities and has built a particularly strong cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction practice for corporate and government clients.

Shegerian hosts the Impact Podcast, which has become one of the most widely listened to sector and sustainability interview programs, with guests including major corporate sustainability leaders, policy figures, and circular economy entrepreneurs. ERI's combination of operational scale and cybersecurity differentiation, in a market where data security risk now drives the procurement decisions for most large enterprise IT asset disposition contracts, has made it one of the most commercially successful e-waste businesses in the sector.

22. Nathan Gray | Reconomy

Nathan Gray is Head of Sustainability at Reconomy, the UK-headquartered circular economy services group whose operations span waste management, recycling compliance, and product reverse logistics across the UK, Europe, and North America. Reconomy is one of the largest dedicated circular economy services groups in the European market, working with retailers, manufacturers, and brand owners on the operational mechanics of circular product systems.

Gray's commentary on UK policy developments, including the Autumn Statement, the rollout of UK Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging, and the implementation of the Deposit Return Scheme, has positioned him as one of the more thoughtful operational voices in the UK circular economy. His perspective combines the operator's view of what is actually deliverable with the policy advocate's view of where the regulatory framework needs to head, which makes his input particularly useful in the current period of intensive UK policy reform.

23. Alec Cooley | Busch Systems

Alec Cooley is Senior Advisor at Busch Systems, the North American recycling container and program design company, a role he has held since 2018. Before joining Busch Systems he was Director of Recycling Programs at Keep America Beautiful for nine years, leading national programs including RecycleMania, and held earlier positions with the National Recycling Coalition and at Humboldt State University. He is a TRUE Advisor certified by Green Business Certification Inc.

He has spent decades working on the behavioural science of recycling, particularly on the question of how to design bins, labels, and signage that increase capture rates and reduce contamination in commercial, institutional, and event settings. His Advancing Recycling blog series and Green Thinking webinar series translate academic research on recycling behaviour into practical guidance for program operators. His work has informed recycling program design in major US universities, professional sports venues, festivals, corporate offices, and municipal pilot programs, and the principles he has developed are now embedded in industry guidance from organisations like Keep America Beautiful and the US EPA.

24. Tara Hemmer | WM

Tara Hemmer was promoted to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of WM in May 2026, having previously served as Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer. She now oversees the operational performance of the largest waste and recycling company in North America, which serves more than 21 million customers across the United States and Canada.

In her previous sustainability role, Hemmer led WM's substantial investment program in renewable natural gas, automated recycling infrastructure, and the company's progress toward its 2038 sustainability targets. Her transition into operational leadership signals the company's commitment to integrating sustainability outcomes into the core of its operating model, and her appointment has been read across the sector as significant for how large-scale waste operators are positioning themselves for the next decade of regulatory and market change.

25. Ryan Cooper | Denali

Ryan Cooper is Senior Director of Strategic Accounts at Denali, the largest organics recycler in the United States, which processed more than 14 billion pounds of organic materials in 2024, including more than two billion pounds of food waste. Cooper joined Denali after a decade at Rubicon, where he served as VP of Circular Economy Solutions and as the company's Organics Recycling Lead.

He sits on the Board of Directors of the US Composting Council and has been one of the leading practitioner voices on food waste diversion in retail, distribution, and foodservice supply chains. His writing has appeared in Sustainable Brands, Supermarket News, Waste Dive, Waste Advantage, and the US Composting Council's publications. As organics legislation expands across US states, Cooper is one of the operators that retailers, distributors, and foodservice groups consult when they need to translate compliance obligations into workable operational programs.

26. Neil Grundon | Grundon Waste Management

Neil Grundon is Chairman of Grundon Waste Management, having been appointed to the role in November 2022 as the third generation of the Grundon family to lead the UK's largest family-owned waste management company. Together with its sister business Grundon Sand & Gravel, the group has annual turnover of around £120 million and employs more than 850 people, with operations across the South of England and the Thames Valley.

Grundon's writing in trade publications, his appearances on conference panels, and his commentary on UK waste policy have positioned him as one of the more articulate independent operator voices in the UK market. He has been particularly outspoken on the practical challenges of UK packaging policy reform, the role of energy from waste in a circular economy, and the importance of family-owned independent operators in a sector increasingly dominated by listed multinationals. He serves as Treasurer of the Environmental Services Association.

27. James Piper | Ecosurety and Talking Rubbish

James Piper is co-owner and non-executive director of Ecosurety, the UK packaging compliance scheme he previously served as CEO, and co-host of the Talking Rubbish podcast alongside Robbie Staniforth. He is also Chair of the environmental charity City to Sea and serves as a non-executive director at OPRL, the organisation that operates the UK on-pack recycling labelling system.

Piper's book The Rubbish Book: A Complete Guide to Recycling has become a popular general-audience guide to recycling in the UK. He was named the Resource Hot 100 Communicator of the Year for 2025 and placed second in the overall Resource Hot 100 rankings. The combination of his industry executive background, his podcast platform, his board roles, and his author profile has made him one of the most influential UK voices on consumer-facing recycling communication and packaging policy.

28. Adam Herriott | WRAP

Adam Herriott is Senior Specialist for Plastics at WRAP, the UK climate action NGO that operates the UK Plastics Pact and the broader global Plastics Pact network. He leads the technical team within the UK Plastics Pact and supports WRAP's international work disseminating knowledge across the global network of Plastics Pacts now operating across more than a dozen countries.

He is a Chartered Resource and Waste Manager with CIWM, was named to Resource Magazine's industry Architects of Change list, and serves on the OPRL Technical Advisory Board, the Strategic Advisory Board for UKRI CircularChem, and the MERLIN project Advisory Board. His commentary appears regularly in UK trade publications and consumer media on topics including flexible plastic recycling, single-use vapes, recycling collection reforms, and the integration of waste management into healthcare settings. He is one of the technical specialists that policy and brand audiences read closely.

Category 4: Researchers and Academics

29. Jenna Jambeck | University of Georgia

Jenna Jambeck is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Georgia and a 2022 MacArthur Fellow whose research first quantified, in a landmark 2015 paper in Science, the volume of plastic entering the world's oceans from land-based sources. That paper established the foundational data underpinning more than a decade of ocean plastic policy, including the ongoing UN global plastics treaty negotiations.

Jambeck co-developed the Marine Debris Tracker app, funded by the NOAA Marine Debris Program, which has become one of the most widely used citizen science tools for documenting plastic pollution in the field. Her research at the University of Georgia's New Materials Institute continues to shape both the science of plastic flows and the design of materials intended to reduce them, and her testimony before US Congress and presentations at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy have positioned her as one of the most influential academic voices on plastic pollution in the world.

30. Roland Geyer | UC Santa Barbara

Roland Geyer is Professor of Industrial Ecology at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara and is the lead author of the 2017 paper in Science Advances that produced the first comprehensive global accounting of plastic production, use, and end-of-life fate. That paper, which estimated that of the more than 8 billion metric tons of plastic produced through 2017 only nine percent had been recycled, is one of the most widely cited environmental science papers of the past decade.

His ongoing work continues to shape how policymakers, brands, and investors talk about plastic flows. He has been particularly influential in arguing that meaningful reductions in plastic pollution will require interventions across production, use, and end-of-life, not just on the recycling side. His critique of recycling-only solutions has informed the design of more recent EPR programs and contributed to the policy debate around production caps in the global plastics treaty.

31. Costas Velis | University of Leeds

Costas Velis is a Visiting Lecturer in Resource Efficiency Systems at the University of Leeds School of Civil Engineering and leads research on circular economy, resource recovery, and plastic pollution prevention. He chairs the UN Environment Programme Community of Practice on Harmonisation of Plastic Pollution Quantification Models and Methodologies and previously led the International Solid Waste Association Marine Litter Task Force.

His 2024 research, published in Nature, found that uncollected waste and open burning are the largest sources of global plastic pollution, with at least 1.2 billion people living without waste collection services. That paper, alongside his contributions to the OECD Global Plastics Outlook and the ISWA Plastic Pollution Calculator, has shifted the international policy conversation toward the basic solid waste management infrastructure that many lower-income countries still lack. His work argues that improving collection in underserved communities is one of the highest-impact interventions available.

32. Winnie Lau | Pew Charitable Trusts

Winnie Lau is Project Director for Preventing Plastic Pollution and Safer Chemicals at the Pew Charitable Trusts. She led the original 2020 Breaking the Plastic Wave report, produced jointly by Pew and SYSTEMIQ, which provided the first comprehensive global model of plastic flows and the interventions required to substantially reduce ocean plastic pollution by 2040.

In December 2025, Pew released Breaking the Plastic Wave 2025, which updates the original model with new data and now finds that systemic transformation could cut annual plastic pollution by 83 percent while reducing related greenhouse gas emissions and saving governments approximately USD 19 billion a year. Lau's leadership of this research, alongside her engagement with the global plastics treaty negotiations and with industry and government stakeholders, has made her one of the central voices in the international policy conversation on plastics.

Category 5: Advocates and Educators

33. Sarah Poulter | CIWM

Sarah Poulter is Chief Executive of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, the UK's primary professional membership body for waste and resource management, which she has led since 2019. Under her leadership CIWM has launched a refreshed strategy positioning the Institution as the leading professional body for circular economy practice in the UK, and in January 2024 oversaw the acquisition of the Circular Economy Institute and the Circular Economy Club into the CIWM group.

CIWM represents thousands of professional members across waste, recycling, and resource management roles, and the Institution's policy work, professional development programs, and research output shape practice across the UK sector. Poulter's leadership of the organisation through a period of significant regulatory reform, including UK packaging EPR, the deposit return scheme, and the Simpler Recycling reforms in England, has positioned CIWM as a constructive partner to government in implementing the reforms.

34. Libby Peake | Green Alliance

Libby Peake is Head of Resource Policy at Green Alliance, the UK environmental policy think tank, where she leads the organisation's work on resource use, waste reduction, and circular economy policy. Green Alliance's policy reports under her leadership have shaped UK government thinking on packaging EPR, on resource efficiency targets, and on the integration of waste policy with broader climate strategy.

Peake's particular contribution has been to argue that UK waste policy needs to be reframed around resource use and material consumption rather than waste management alone. Her writing in The Guardian, in trade publications, and in Green Alliance's research output has become a regular reference point for policymakers, journalists, and other think tanks working on UK environmental and circular economy policy. She is one of the analysts that the more thoughtful UK policy reporters call when they need a considered view on resource and waste questions.

35. Joe Papineschi | Eunomia Research & Consulting

Joe Papineschi is Chairperson of Eunomia Research & Consulting, the UK-based environmental and circular economy consultancy, having been appointed to the role in 2020. Eunomia is one of the most consequential consultancies in the global circular economy and waste sector, advising governments, brands, and investors on packaging EPR, deposit return scheme design, materials flows analysis, and policy modelling.

The firm's reports on packaging recycling rates across all 50 US states, on the design of deposit return schemes in Europe and beyond, and on the policy mechanics of EPR have shaped programs in dozens of jurisdictions. Papineschi has more than three decades of experience in the sector, and his stewardship of Eunomia has positioned the firm as a trusted independent voice in policy debates where producer, NGO, and government positions often diverge significantly. The firm's analytical work is read closely by policy designers across multiple continents.

36. Will Ghali | Ecosurety

Will Ghali is Chief Executive of Ecosurety, the UK's first B Corp certified packaging compliance scheme, a role he has held since 2021. Under his leadership Ecosurety has grown from approximately 35 to more than 70 staff, with turnover reaching around £39 million, while marking 20 years as one of the most distinctive compliance schemes in the UK market. The company recently celebrated this anniversary with a series of industry events.

Ecosurety operates as a Certified B Corporation and combines its core packaging compliance services with active investment in circular economy infrastructure, consumer awareness campaigns, and policy advocacy. Ghali's leadership of the organisation through the rollout of UK packaging EPR and the design of new compliance frameworks has positioned Ecosurety as one of the more thoughtful operators in a UK compliance sector that is undergoing significant structural change. The B Corp identity in particular has become a meaningful differentiator in brand procurement decisions.

37. Jacob Hayler | Environmental Services Association

Jacob Hayler is Executive Director of the Environmental Services Association (ESA), the trade association representing the UK's recycling and waste management industry, which speaks for nearly 70 of the country's largest waste management companies that collectively employ around 50,000 people. He leads the ESA on strategy and operations, working with the board of directors to set the association's policy positions on packaging EPR, the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, Simpler Recycling, the Circular Economy Growth Plan, and waste crime enforcement.

Hayler's quarterly video updates and his opinion pieces in letsrecycle.com and Circular Online have become reliable touchstones for UK sector practitioners trying to track where government policy is heading. His commentary on the Collection and Packaging Reforms, on nitrous oxide cylinder fires at energy from waste plants, on battery fires from vapes, and on the broader Vision 2040 work that the ESA is developing positions him as one of the most authoritative UK voices on the operational consequences of regulatory reform. In November 2025 the ESA announced John Scanlon, CEO of SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, as its new Chair.

38. Tom Giddings | Alupro

Tom Giddings is Executive Director of Alupro, the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation, which represents the UK aluminium packaging industry and works to maximise the UK recycling rate for aluminium drinks cans, foil, and other aluminium packaging. Under his leadership Alupro has run a series of high-profile public-facing campaigns, including the Munch, Scrunch, Recycle Easter foil recycling campaign, alongside policy work supporting the rollout of the UK Deposit Return Scheme.

Aluminium is one of the most economically and environmentally valuable materials in the kerbside waste stream, and Giddings' leadership of Alupro has helped maintain the industry's positioning as a constructive partner to government and to other compliance schemes. His commentary on UK packaging recycling performance and on the integration of aluminium packaging into the broader UK reform programme has positioned Alupro as one of the more strategically engaged material-specific industry bodies in the UK market.

39. Marcus Gover | CIWM and Former WRAP

Marcus Gover is the former Chief Executive of WRAP, where he led the organisation from 2016 to 2022 through a period of significant international expansion and through the launch of programs including Textiles 2030, the Plastics Pact network, and the UK Citizen movement campaigns. In March 2026 he was elected Junior Vice President of the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, taking over from Liz Parkes MBE at the presidential inauguration in June.

Between his WRAP tenure and his CIWM appointment, Gover served as Director of the Minderoo Foundation's Plastics Initiative, leading teams across Australia, Asia, and Europe focused on tackling plastic pollution and contributing to the international policy work around the global plastics treaty. He brings more than 30 years of leadership experience across the resource and sustainability sectors and is already a CIWM trustee and a member of the Institution's Policy and Innovation Forum.

40. Chris Foley | APCO

Chris Foley is Chief Executive of the Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation, the not-for-profit that leads the development of a circular economy for packaging in Australia. APCO administers the Australian Packaging Covenant on behalf of the Australian government and operates the Australasian Recycling Label (ARL) program, which is now used on packaging across more than 850 member brands.

Foley has led APCO through a period of intensive policy reform as Australia's Environment Ministers progress packaging regulation reform and as the National Packaging Targets are reviewed. His commentary on the evolving landscape of Australian packaging regulation, including on podcasts and at major industry events, has positioned APCO as a central convener of the Australian packaging value chain. The organisation's work with state and federal governments, with brand owners, with retailers, and with the recycling industry continues to shape how packaging policy develops across Australia and New Zealand.

41. Monica Wilson | Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives

Monica Wilson is Senior Director, Global Programs at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), the international network of grassroots groups, NGOs, and individuals working toward a world without incineration and toward zero waste systems based on environmental justice principles. She has been with GAIA since 2002, having previously served as US and Canada Program Director and Associate Director of GAIA's US office. GAIA's membership spans grassroots organisations in dozens of countries and is one of the most consistent international voices arguing against incineration and chemical recycling as solutions to the plastic pollution crisis.

Wilson's particular contribution has been in research and advocacy on the public health and environmental justice dimensions of waste infrastructure decisions, particularly the disproportionate siting of incinerators and disposal facilities in low-income communities and communities of colour. She has 20+ years of experience documenting the consequences of all types of waste incineration including gasification, pyrolysis, plasma, chemical recycling, and cement kilns, and her work supporting grassroots campaigns has shaped policy debates from the United States to Southeast Asia to East Africa.

42. Susan Collins | Container Recycling Institute

Susan Collins is President of the Container Recycling Institute, a leading US research and policy organisation focused on beverage container recycling and the design of deposit return schemes. CRI's research on container deposit systems, on single stream recycling performance, and on the economics of materials recovery has shaped policy debates across the US states actively considering or expanding bottle bill programs.

Collins joined CRI in 2009 after two decades advising municipalities on solid waste and recycling programs at firms including SCS Engineers, R3 Consulting Group, and HF&H Consultants. She holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson and served nine years on the board of the California Resource Recovery Association. Her commentary on state legislation including California SB 353, her research on Vermont's Bottle Bill, and her ongoing advocacy for deposit return systems have made her one of the most authoritative US voices on container recycling policy.

43. Sophie Thomas | Thomas Matthews

Sophie Thomas is a co-founder of Thomas Matthews, the London-based communication design studio, and has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of design, circular economy, and material flows. Her work spans graphic design, exhibition design, and strategic advisory for organisations including major UK brands, museums, and circular economy initiatives.

Thomas has been a prominent voice in the UK and European design community on the responsibility of designers to consider material flows and end-of-life outcomes as core design decisions rather than afterthoughts. Her contributions to industry conferences, design education, and circular economy practitioner networks have helped shape how the UK design profession engages with the circular economy. She is one of the people quoted regularly when design publications cover the intersection of branding, material choice, and sustainability.

44. Dana Gunders | ReFED

Dana Gunders is Executive Director of ReFED, the US non-profit working to end food loss and waste through data-driven solutions, a role she has held since March 2020. Her 2012 report Wasted: How America is Losing Up to 40% of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill, written while she was a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, was the report that brought food waste into mainstream US policy and media conversation.

Consumer Reports has called Gunders the woman who helped start the waste-free movement. She is the author of the Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook, launched the Save the Food campaign with the Ad Council, testified before US Congress, and has consulted to major brands including Google on food waste reduction. ReFED's role tracking food waste investment, policy, and intervention performance across the US food system has positioned it as the central data source for everyone working on the US 2030 food waste reduction target.

45. Anne-Marie Bonneau | Zero Waste Chef

Anne-Marie Bonneau is the founder of the Zero Waste Chef blog and the author of The Zero-Waste Chef: Plant-Forward Recipes and Tips for a Sustainable Kitchen and Planet, published in 2021 and the Silver Winner of the 2022 Taste Canada Award for Single-Subject Cookbooks. She has been living plastic-free since 2011 and has built one of the largest consumer-facing zero waste communities online.

Her contribution to the broader recycling and waste conversation is in translating the systemic issues of food waste, plastic packaging, and household consumption into practical, accessible kitchen practice. Her writing argues that millions of people doing zero waste imperfectly will have more impact than a small number doing it perfectly, and that framing has helped build a sustained consumer audience for the broader circular economy conversation. Her recipes, fermentation guides, and household tips reach an audience that traditional waste policy communication often misses.

46. Grace Akese | Memorial University

Grace Akese is a researcher and writer whose academic work focuses on the political economy of global electronic waste flows, with particular attention to the markets and labour practices around Agbogbloshie in Accra, Ghana, one of the world's most photographed and most misrepresented e-waste sites. Her doctoral research at Memorial University in Newfoundland challenged the dominant Western framing of Agbogbloshie as primarily an e-waste dump.

Her writing argues that the people working at Agbogbloshie are skilled informal recyclers operating sophisticated material recovery systems rather than victims of toxic dumping, and that Western policy frameworks built on that misunderstanding have produced interventions that have often made the situation worse rather than better. Her contribution to the global e-waste conversation is to insist that policy and journalism take the agency and expertise of informal recyclers in the Global South seriously, and her work is now widely cited in academic and policy debates about international waste flows.

47. Abhay Deshpande | Recykal

Abhay Deshpande is Founder and CEO of Recykal, the Hyderabad-based digital circular economy platform that connects waste generators, recyclers, brands, and producer responsibility organisations across India. He co-founded the company in 2016 alongside Abhishek Deshpande, Anirudha Jalan, Ekta Narain, Vikram Prabakar, and Sujan Parthasaradhi, and has led Recykal's growth to a 500+ person team serving 620+ brands, 675+ certified recyclers, and 5,000+ aggregators across more than 30 Indian states and union territories.

Recykal's platform aggregates the highly fragmented Indian waste and recycling sector, providing brands with the documentation required for EPR compliance while creating more reliable demand for the work of informal and small-formal recyclers. The company has raised approximately USD 40 million in funding from investors including Morgan Stanley, Circulate Capital, and Bank of Singapore, was named a Global Innovator by the World Economic Forum in 2024, and received Nasscom's AI Gamechanger Award the same year. Deshpande is a serial entrepreneur with more than 18 years of experience and was previously Founder and CEO of MartJack.

48. Gretchen Carey | MassRecycle

Gretchen Carey is Past President of MassRecycle, the Massachusetts statewide non-profit working to advance recycling, composting, and zero waste across the Commonwealth, having served as President for nearly seven years before passing the role to Terri Goldberg in late 2025. She is now Owner of GCarey Sustainability and remains active in MassRecycle leadership, including moderating sessions at the 2026 MassRecycle Conference. Carey is a LEED Green Associate, a Zero Waste TRUE Advisor, and co-founder of GreenLabs Recycling, the hyperlocal company for laboratory plastics recycling.

Her tenure as President came during a period of significant change in Massachusetts waste policy, including expanded disposal bans, food waste diversion requirements for large generators, and ongoing debate over packaging EPR. She also co-hosts the MassRecycle Podcast alongside MR Vice President Waneta Trabert, which has become a useful resource for sector practitioners tracking developments in Massachusetts and across the Northeast. Carey's combination of municipal recycling experience, corporate sustainability work at Republic Services, and volunteer non-profit leadership makes her one of the more connected sector voices in the region.

49. Jared Blumenfeld | Waverley Street Foundation

Jared Blumenfeld is the inaugural President of the Waverley Street Foundation, a global climate change non-profit focused on community-driven climate solutions, having stepped down in September 2022 from his role as Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. As CalEPA Secretary, he oversaw California's recycling and waste reduction goals during a period that included the passage of California SB 54, one of the most consequential packaging EPR laws in the United States.

Before leading CalEPA, Blumenfeld served as Regional Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency for the Pacific Southwest under President Obama from 2009 to 2016, and as Director of San Francisco's Department of Environment from 2001 to 2009 under Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom. His Podship Earth podcast, his ongoing public commentary on environmental policy, and his work at Waverley Street continue to position him as one of the most active US environmental policy figures across the spectrum of climate, waste, and resource issues.

Notable Voices We Almost Included

Several other people came close to the list, including Mike Manna of Organic Recycling Solutions, who has done significant work on US west coast organics infrastructure, Tom Szaky of TerraCycle, whose work on hard-to-recycle waste streams reaches a global retail audience, Liz Bothwell of Waste360, whose podcast and conference platform shape sector conversation, Liz Goodwin, the former WRAP CEO who continues to work internationally on resource policy, and Andy Moore of the British Plastics Federation, whose technical and policy leadership shapes UK plastics industry positioning. Any list of 49 leaves out hundreds of others doing substantial work, and these names are worth following if the people on the main list resonate.

Common Mistakes in How Organisations Approach Recycling Strategy

The most common mistake is treating recycling as a procurement issue rather than a strategy issue. Organisations sign a waste services contract, set a recycling rate target, and then leave it to the facilities team or the office manager to deliver. The result is a program that no one actually owns and that quietly underperforms while everyone assumes it is fine.

The second common mistake is over-relying on technology and under-investing in behaviour. Better bins, clearer signage, better contamination feedback, and active engagement with the people who actually generate the waste consistently outperform expensive equipment upgrades that nobody understands. The leaders on this list, particularly Alec Cooley, Adam Herriott, and Anne-Marie Bonneau, all return to this point repeatedly.

The third common mistake is assuming that progress will be linear. Recycling system change is lumpy. Major regulatory shifts, new infrastructure coming online, brand reformulation decisions, and changes in commodity markets all create discontinuities. Organisations that build recycling strategy on the assumption of steady incremental improvement get caught flat-footed when the underlying conditions shift.

How to Use This List in Your Organisation

Pick three people from the list whose work most directly intersects with your organisation's circumstances. If you are a brand owner working on packaging, that probably means at least one journalist, one policy architect, and one researcher. If you are a municipal recycling coordinator, it probably means at least one operations leader, one researcher on the specific waste streams you handle, and one advocate working on the policy framework above you.

Subscribe to whatever they publish. For the journalists, that is straightforward, since their work is available on the relevant trade publications and major media outlets. For the policy architects, it usually means subscribing to their organisation's newsletter and following their LinkedIn posts. For the researchers, it means following their institutional pages and their academic publishing.

Set a recurring half-day in your calendar, ideally quarterly, to read what they have published and ask what it implies for your work. The leaders on this list are not writing for an audience of fifty thousand. They are writing for the few hundred people in any given country who are actually making decisions about waste, recycling, and circular economy. If you are reading their work and thinking carefully about it, you are in a small and disproportionately influential group.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why is the list not ranked?

A: Because ranking journalists, policy architects, executives, researchers, and advocates against each other does not produce useful information. The categories are different, and the criteria for excellence within each category are different. A ranked list would imply that the journalist at position three is more important than the researcher at position thirty, which is not what the numbering means here.

Q: How was geographic coverage decided?

A: The list aims for genuine global coverage but is honest that the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union are over-represented relative to the global population, because that is where most of the published work, regulatory development, and major investment in the sector currently sits. Voices from India, Ghana, China, and Latin America are included to give some sense of where the sector is also moving.

Q: Is this list updated?

A: The list reflects publicly available information reviewed in 2026. Senior roles change, and several people on this list have moved roles within the past 24 months, so individual entries may need updating between revisions. Future updates will reflect those changes.

Q: Where do I go for adjacent leadership topics?

A: Many readers of this list are operating leaders, executives, and managers working in the waste, recycling, and circular economy sector. The technical sector content is well served by the people on this list. For adjacent topics around leadership culture, difficult conversations, accountability, and team alignment, which are challenges that show up across every sector but that the sector-specific publications rarely cover well, Jonno White's work at Consult Clarity may be useful. His book Step Up or Step Out has sold more than 10,000 copies globally and is widely used in leadership team development across schools, corporates, and non-profits.

Final Thoughts

The waste, recycling, and circular economy sector is in the middle of the most significant policy and technological shift in its modern history. EPR legislation, the global plastics treaty, AI-driven sorting, the maturing of circular economy investment, and the rapid growth of organics infrastructure are reshaping the operating environment for everyone in the sector. The leaders on this list are the ones whose work is shaping how that shift plays out.

If you take one thing from this list, take this. Read their work seriously. Pick the ones closest to your situation. Subscribe, follow, attend their conferences, and let their thinking shape yours. The sector is small enough that this level of engagement is genuinely possible, and the operators, policymakers, and brands who do it tend to outperform the ones who do not.

For leadership development support in the waste, recycling, or circular economy sector, including executive team facilitation, leadership coaching, and difficult conversations training, Jonno White works with leadership teams globally across schools, corporates, and non-profits. He is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator and the author of Step Up or Step Out, available on Amazon. For inquiries, contact jonno@consultclarity.org.

About the Author

Jonno White is the founder of Clarity Group Global, a Brisbane-based leadership consultancy that works with leadership teams across schools, corporates, and non-profits around the world. He is a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, a keynote speaker, and the author of Step Up or Step Out, which has sold more than 10,000 copies globally and is used in leadership team development across multiple sectors.

He hosts The Leadership Conversations Podcast, which has produced more than 230 episodes with leaders in more than 150 countries, and founded The 7 Questions Movement, which has now interviewed more than 6,000 leaders. His most recent independent school engagement, with the Australian School Boards Association in 2025, returned a 93.75 percent satisfaction rating from participants. He works globally and is based in Brisbane, Australia.

Next Read

If this list was useful, you may also find value in reading about the leadership disciplines that consistently show up across the executives, policy architects, and operators profiled here. Difficult conversations, sustained team alignment, and the discipline of saying no to good ideas in service of great ones are the through-lines that connect the work of the people on this list. Step Up or Step Out is one resource that covers these themes in detail and is available on Amazon.