Circular Economy for Waste Management

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The delivery economy has taken off during the pandemic leading to increasing amounts of packaging waste and adding to an already existing waste crisis. As Asia is beginning to ban the import of plastic waste from western countries, it’s time to rethink waste management and also look at new packaging solutions.

We will be asking the panelists questions such as

• Why is now a good time for a new approach to circular economy in packaging and waste management?
• What technologies, business and financing models in the waste management sector can support climate action while potentially also creating “green” jobs?
• How can logistics companies, manufacturers and disposal companies work together to find better process and packaging solutions to achieve better waste management?

Panelists:

• Sebastian Frisch, Senior Partner, Black Forest Solutions GmbH
• Megan Wolski, Innovation Engagement Manager, DHL
• Annette Wiedenbach, GABC SmartCities Task Force (Moderator)

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Date: Thursday, February 18th, 2021

Time: 12PM to 1PM

Platform: Zoom Meeting

This is the fourth in a series of monthly “Smart Cities” virtual events leading up to our German-American Economic Forum, now scheduled for 2021. #GAEF2021

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Speakers

Moderator

Annette Wiedenbach, GABC SmartCities Task Force
Annette Wiedenbach is Country Manager China at Climate Scorecard and a 2018/19 Fellow of the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. As an international corporate communications and public affairs professional she worked over 20 years in global and local government affairs, communications, change management and sustainability leadership positions for German companies operating globally. She has lived and worked in Germany, China, Taiwan, Singapore and is currently based in Boston, MA, USA. Until 2018 she was a member on the steering committee of the Covestro-Tongji Chair for Sustainable Development at Shanghai’s Tongji University and Co-Chair of the Sustainability Task Force of the China Petrochemical and Chemicals Industry Federation. Annette is Content Lead for the GABC SmartCities Task Force conceptualizing and driving content for the 2020-2021 event series and conference.

Panelists

Megan Wolski, Innovation Engagement Manager, DHL United States
Megan has over ten years of experience in global supply chain and logistics operations. Today she works for DHL’s Americas Innovation Center: a purpose-built platform to engage customers, startups, and industries on the future of logistics. Megan works with customers to discover opportunities for digitalization, within their supply chains, and connects them with the experts to accomplish their goals. Throughout Megan’s career, she has touched multiple areas within in the supply chain – from finished goods deployment and allocation strategy to increasing velocity on retail shelves and working with technology teams to build software for logistics companies. Megan is based in Chicago and holds two supply chain management degrees from The Pennsylvania State University and Georgia Southern University.

Sebastian Frisch, Senior Partner, Black Forest Solutions GmbH
Mr. Sebastian Frisch, one of the managing directors of BlackForest Solutions Gmbh (BFS), hold responsibility of leading an international waste management consultancy team of 18 staff. Mr. Frisch has 18 years of waste management experience in more than 60 countries, with 12 years of practical experience in EPR for SWM and the circular economy sector. He is currently leading a project in Kuwait to survey and establish a comprehensive database for a national waste management system. The 4-year project is implemented in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute. The project is conducted on behalf of the Kuwait Environmental Public Authority and has a total volume of around € 18 million. In this project, the consultants propose concepts to support the public sector in decision making, including strategies for EPR in Kuwait.

Mr. Frisch has more than 10 years of regional experience in carrying out projects in low- and middle- income countries. In one of the current GIZ projects, Mr. Frisch is providing sustainable design solutions for plastic packaging in Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia for a local company. As the exclusive technical consultant to Grameen Creative Labs and Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW), he is responsible for conducting a technical and financial analysis for the plastic recycling processes, and multi-stakeholder discussion for social business-based plastic recycling facilities establishment in Tan’An, Vietnam, and Puducherry, India. Mr. Frisch was involved in the assessment of a PET recycling facility that receives input from multi-colored bins in Hong Kong (source segregation), inter alia he conducted the waste composition analysis, and technical recommendations for the input for this facility.
On behalf of the German Ministry of Environment (BMU), Mr. Frisch conducted various country studies related to the circular economy and EPR sector, inter alia in China (July 2017 to August 2018), Vietnam (July 2017-June 2018) and India (July 2017-August 2018) – these country studies provide legal and technical guidance on business cases in the circular economy and EPR. The studies were addressed to German companies that are interested to invest in this field in Southeast Asia.

In Sri Lanka, Mr. Frisch provided a pre-feasibility study for the implementation of a holistic recycling system for selected post-consumer recyclables. He developed new packaging waste recycling business models and assessed the EPR for packaging waste and regulations to boost a technology transfer in Sri Lanka. In the same country, he developed a country profile for the waste and water sectors involving the participation of multi-stakeholders. The output of this project is to outline the status quo of the entire waste sector at the national level, including analysis of the current regulatory framework and to prepare the implementation of an EPR scheme for Sri Lanka.

As part of cooperation with a development cooperation agency aiming at improving local capacity in low- and middle-income countries, Mr. Frisch has been involved in development cooperation projects for 12 years. In 2008, Mr. Frisch was involved in development cooperation with KfW in the Hawaman National Master Plan of Waste Management for the Ministry of Environment and KfW in Turkey. In this project, he provided consultancy services in the implementation of Turkey’s waste management system based on a 10-year time horizon. He was also responsible for supporting the institutional capacity development of Turkey governmental institutions.