New national board for recycling industry body

The recent Annual General Meeting of the Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR) elected a new National President and Deputy President following the retirement of its former National President Mike Haywood.

The new National Executive consists of:

• President - Rodney Johnson, Alex Fraser
• Deputy President  - Garbis Simonian, Weston Aluminium
• Treasurer - Andrew Watson, ResourceCo
• Public Officer - Paul Hilton, Amcor

Chief Executive of ACOR Rod Welford said the Board expressed its appreciation to a number of board members who had stood down from the Board this year, allowing fresh members to bring new ideas to the forward agenda of the national organisation.

In particular, the Board expressed its appreciation to former President Mike Haywood (formerly ResourceCo representative) and longstanding Treasurer Lee Smith (Visy Recycling). Both members had made an active contribution to the reform of ACOR and the renewal of national governance arrangements in the last two years.

Other new members of the national Board come from new company members:

• Colin Sweet, Thiess Services
• Greg Turnidge, Close the Loop Recycling

Welford said the Board looked forward to another exciting year of growth and policy engagement as the importance of resource efficiency became ever more important to Australia’s environmental and economic imperatives.

“The move by the federal government to put a price on carbon emissions will be of major significance to businesses wanting to use materials and energy more efficiently through recycling and avoid the economic impact of emission costs of wasted resources,” he said.

In the meantime, ACOR is actively involved in a range of state-based initiatives with the potential to have long-term impacts on the industry including: the new NSW Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery Strategy Implementation Plan, the new Waste Reduction and Recycling Strategy in Queensland, the Review of South Australia’s Waste Strategy 2010-2015 and the pending National TV and Computer Product Stewardship Scheme.