Live Chat with Phil Bresee: Recycling Director, City of Philadelphia

Every Wednesday at 4pm PST / 7pm EST (and every once in a while at other times) TriplePundit will take 30 minutes or so to chat with an interesting leader in the sustainable business movement. These chats are broadcast on our Google+ channel and embedded via YouTube right here on 3p.

On March 5th, TriplePundit's Founder Nick Aster spoke with Phil Bresee about solid waste management in the United States and in Philadelphia, the benefits of recycling, and where this industry is headed. Phil informed the audience about natural resource savings, the implicit reduction in GHG emissions, energy saved, and economic benefits for the City.

If you missed the conversation, you can watch it right here or on our YouTube channel.

About Phil: 

Since July 2012 Phil Bresee has been the recycling director for the City of Philadelphia, the fifth most populous city in the U.S., overseeing programs and policy planning for one of the largest solid waste and recycling operations in the nation. Bresee’s focus includes the city’s recyclables processing contract, the Recycling Rewards incentive program, commercial and institutional recycling, public outreach, and serving as the lead staffer for the city’s solid waste and recycling advisory committee. Recycling and waste reduction are key strategies in Philadelphia’s Greenworks plan, which is Mayor Michael Nutter’s blueprint for making Philadelphia the nation’s greenest city by 2015.

From 2004 until 2012, Bresee was the recycling program manager for Broward County, Florida, the second-largest county in the southeast and eighteenth largest in the U.S. Bresee led a staff of up to 19, directing programs and initiatives on behalf of the county, its 26 partner cities and the Broward public schools system. Bresee also was the architect of a $20 million recycling grants project which used solid waste system reserves to help cities improve their residential recycling programs. Bresee also managed the county’s innovative project that studied the feasibility of using pulverized recycled glass for beach erosion control.

Phil has served in elected leadership positions in statewide recycling associations, including as chair of Recycle Florida Today, and as president of the Maryland Recyclers Coalition.