Eric Lombardi is currently the Executive Director of Eco-Cycle, Inc., and has had a long career in resource conservation, social enterprise development and non-profit (NGO) organizational management since 1980. Eco-Cycle, founded in 1976, is considered a nationwide pioneer in the recycling industry and has grown under Lombardi’s tenure (starting in 1989) to become the largest community-based recycling organization in the U.S.A. with a staff of 55 and processing of nearly 50,000 tons of diverse recycled materials per year (2005). Lombardi is recognized as an authority on developing comprehensive community-based resource recovery programs and is often a keynote speaker and consultant on the social and technical aspects of creating a “Zero Waste - Or Darn Near” society.

Lombardi has experience both nationally and internationally as a project consultant, keynote speaker and workshop leader for government and private sector clients across the USA, and in New Zealand, England, France, Romania, American Samoa, Wales and Saipan (Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands). His work in these countries has been diversified, covering specific topics such as the creation of community recycling centers, the challenges of collecting and marketing “hard to recycle” materials such as electronic scrap, the rewards of the social enterprise NGO approach, the politics of growing community recycling programs, and the strategies for long-term recycling business survival.

Lombardi also has significant facility and program design experience, including the creation of the first curbside recycling program and the building the first MRF (materials recovery facility) in North Carolina (1986). He has designed and built numerous community recycling centers in Boulder County, Colorado, worked as a facility and program consultant for the Wal Mart “Green Store” in Kansas, designed, built and operated the first “Hard-To-Recycle Center” in the USA (Boulder), was lead consultant for US AID on the creation of a for-profit paper recycling program in Romania, and led the design effort of the new MRF in Boulder County that was declared “the nicest MRF I’ve ever seen in the world” by George Weyerhaeuser, the V.P. of paper recycling for the global 100 corporation of the same name. (see pics here)

As a recognized recycling expert, Lombardi was invited to the Clinton White House in 1998 as one of the Top 100 USA Recyclers to advise on national recycling issues. Lombardi currently serves as the Board President of the national GrassRoots Recycling Network, and is a co-founder of the global Zero Waste International Alliance, based in Wales. Lombardi served from 1997-2004 on the National Recycling Coalition’s (NRC) Policy Work Group, he is a past Board member of the Colorado Association for Recycling (CAFR), and was an executive Board member of the NRC from 1991-1995. In 1992, he co-founded the National Nonprofit Recyclers Council. Before recycling, Lombardi worked in the energy field, and from 1984-1988 he created statewide demonstration projects for energy efficiency as a project manager for the North Carolina Alternative Energy Cooperation, and in 1982 he co-founded of the Boulder County Energy Conservation Office.

Since 1980, Lombardi has been working at the interface of where society/technology/business come together to bring beneficial change to all the stakeholders. Lombardi can bring unique contributions to any project due to his depth of experience and web of connections, as well as his understanding that a community recycling “system” is just that, a system that requires the success of many stakeholders, including local service providers, recycling professionals, international commodity brokers and the local politicians.

Lombardi has an advanced degree in Technology and Human Affairs from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and an undergraduate degree in Human Geography from the University of Colorado, Boulder.