In order of Appearance in the Program

Garbis Simonian

Managing Director and Founder, Weston Aluminium Pty Ltd

In 1993 Garbis was appointed as Executive Director of Mino Metal Pty Ltd, trading in nonferrous metals. Soon after he became the Managing Director of Alumino Australia Pty Ltd.
In 1996, Garbis established Weston Aluminium Pty Ltd, a services company that provides innovative solutions to the aluminium and steel industries.
In addition to his duties at Weston Aluminium & since 2003, Garbis serves as The Executive Director of Hunter Energy Pty Ltd, the Director of Macquarie Energy Pty Ltd & as the Chairman of the Hunter Gas Users Group.
Garbis has a BA - LLB (Hons), from Sydney University, graduating in 1979.

Presentation:  Australasian Industrial Ecology– where are we? What direction should we aspire to? Where from to here?

Nick Rowley  Key Note Address

Director, Kinesis Pty Ltd

Nick specialises in advising on new policy and practice to achieve emissions reduction for business and government. He has a deep knowledge of the policy and other drivers required to achieve low emissions growth.

Over the past twelve years he has worked at the centre of government on sustainability, climate change and broader policy and political strategy in Australia and the UK. From March 2004 to January 2006, Nick worked at 10 Downing Street as an advisor to Tony Blair.  In this role he was part of a small team advising the Prime Minister on climate change prior to the G8 Summit at Gleneagles in July 2005 and worked closely with the likes of Nicholas Stern and the Prime Ministers Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King.  From 1995 to 2004 Nick was advisor to Bob Carr, Premier of NSW, working primarily on policy on the environment, urban development and medical research.

Nick is also Strategic Director to the Copenhagen Climate Council working with senior global business CEOs and climate experts to help achieve a new global climate treaty at the crucial UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December 2009. He is a regular commentator on climate issues in the Australian and international media, is on the Advisory Board of The Climate Group and is a Fellow of the Australian New Zealand School of Government. 

Presentation:  The sustainability imperative. How achieving greater sustainability, emissions reductions and more efficient use of resources will become the defining characteristic of successful business and policy

Mark Gorta                                                                                                                                                                                                  Manager, Waste Management

NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change

Mark Gorta manages the policy and enforcement team in the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change that delivers and implements the framework for regulating wastes in NSW. Mark’s academic background is in agricultural science from the University of Queensland and he also has a M.Sc. in Crop Protection from Reading Uni. in the UK Presentation: Legislative changes and regulatory framework to encourage industrial ecology in New South Wales

Mat Skembes

Strategic Sourcing Manager, James Hardie Australia Pty Ltd

Mat is responsible for sourcing of key inputs into James Hardie Australia operations. He is directly accountable for delivering a cost competitive position and unique value propositions in markets which are becoming increasingly competitive and globalised. Mat is passionate about sustainability and its positive impact on business performance. Mat applies innovation and “adapative persistence” in realising positive environmental and commercial outcomes through sustainability initiatives.

Mat commenced his working career with a major paint manufacturer as an industrial chemist 20 years ago. He proudly achieved his first environmental and resource recovery milestone in 1989 when he pioneered use of waste wash waters into the paint production process. Mat has since travelled numerous resource recovery and resource efficiency journeys and will be enthusiastically presenting some of his experience. Mat has graduated with BSc (SydU) and MCom (UNSW) degrees.

Presentation: Use of by-products in the building materials sector

Dustan Hansen

Account Manager, Geocycle (Cement Australia)

Dustan has over ten years of Hazardous Waste Management experience with both government and private companies. He graduated from the University of Newcastle with a Bachelor of Environmental Science in 1994. He is currently working for Geocycle in the search for waste materials that can be recovered and reused as either a fuel or raw materials in the cement manufacture process. Geocycle is the alternate fuels and raw materials division of Cement Australia, Australia’s largest cement manufacturer.

Presentation:  Reuse of high calorific value by-products in cement manufacture

Robert Evans

Site Environmental Engineer, Botany Industrial Park

After more than 20 years as Professional Chemist and Environment Engineer for NSW Government Railways Laboratories and State Rail Authority of NSW, Robert began as Site Environment Engineer at Botany Industrial Park (formerly ICI Botany Site) in 1989.

He was responsible for and involved in: compliance of effluent systems discharging >4.5 ML/day to Sydney Water sewers; after-hours emergency technical support to all 8 operating plants in Botany Industrial Park; assessment and classification of over 100 different waste streams for recycling or disposal to treatment plants or landfill; negotiation of variations to environment protection licences for Orica, Huntsman and Qenos; compliance reporting to Sydney Water, NSW DECC, NSW WorkCover and NSW Dept of Planning; networking with PACIA, AiGroup and AEBN; consulting to DECC on proposed variations to legislation and regulation; AiGroup representative on Sydney Water Commercial and Industrial Customer Forum.

Robert is involved in the resource recovery projects including: Orica Botany treated groundwater; Spent pickling acid reuse; Diversion of treated industrial effluent for use in cooling systems; Diversion of polymer floor sweepings from landfill to recycler

Robert has a Bachelor of Science (Pure & Applied Chemistry), UNSW and is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.

Presentation:  Industry ecology in practice – synergy of three organisations

Dr Hubert Baier

Neovis GmbH + Co.KG (Muenster/ G)

After finishing study of natural and materials sciences in Muenster (G) and Innsbruck (A) Hubert started his thesis as a project engineer in quality assurance and pre-treatment of FGD-gypsum und fly ashes coming from power plants. Afterwards he entered the cement industry and became head of department for artificial fuel and raw material (AFR).

As Managing Director he improved a public owned mechanical-biological treating plant for commercial and domestic waste. This MBT has become the first certified for fulfilling the quality demands of input criteria regarding pollution control and thermal processes. He was chairman of the working group of the Association for Material specific Treatment “SRF & mechanical treating”; Committee member in the EU standardization CEN TC 343 and at national DIN mirroring committee NMP 583.  He is a member of the Quality Committee of the Federal Community for Quality Assurance of Solid Recovered Fuels in Germany, member of the advisory board of R&D projects of Uni Weimar and Fraunhofer Institute and now he is Managing Partner of neovis GmbH + Co. KG, Muenster with his main focus on pre-treating and thermal industry.

Presentation: Solid recovered fuels in the cement and power generating industries

Prof Markus Reuter

Chief Executive Metallurgist, Ausmelt Ltd

Professor Markus Reuter (PhD, DEng., Dr. habil, Pr.Eng.) is Chief Executive Technologist at Ausmelt Ltd and is a Professorial Fellow at Melbourne University (Australia). He was awarded the Doctorate of Engineering by the Stellenbosch University for the thesis “The fundamental limits of recycling”, covering 20 years of R&D work as among others Professor of Engineering at Delft University of Technology (NL), (where he is still professor emeritus), involving the European metallurgical, recycling and automotive industries.

He has over 340 publications in journals, encyclopaedias, conference proceedings and has written a book “Metrics of Material and Metal Ecology”, Elsevier (Amsterdam). He also worked for Anglo American as well as Mintek both in South Africa. He was one of the The Age newspaper's 100 most influential Melburnians of 2007

Presentation:  The smelter’s niche in metal recycling and design for sustainability

Assoc. Professor John Lucas

University of Newcastle

Associate Professor John Lucas has been member of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Newcastle University for 20 years, where he is currently Department Head.

John Lucas has been involved in research predominantly in the area of resource utilisation (coal & iron ore) and in waste management, spanning from pure fundamentals to concept development and pilot scale, developmental to the fully applied.

In the area of waste management, Lucas’ research has been commercialised to yield an internationally patented technology known as “Direct-heated Fast-quench Thermal Desorption” which has been successfully applied to the rehabilitation and beneficial re-use of former industrial sites polluted with hazardous chemicals.

Lucas is a leading expert in the field, the technology he has developed is currently being utilised to remediate an 8 hectare property in Melbourne, Victoria.  The former disused industrial site will then be the home of the largest homemaker centre in Australia – the project itself is a model of sustainability and re-use.

Lucas is currently focussing his research on areas of “waste mining and recovery” exploring ways of considering by-products as resources rather than wastes.

Presentation:  Development of new technology for industrial ecology– research and engineering challenges

Colin Barker

Leading Engineer – Sustainable Development, Advitech

Colin has over 28 years experience as a Process Engineer and Operations Manager in industries as varied as iron and steel, chemicals and water treatment.  He has extensive experience in management, process design, regulatory compliance, quality and environmental auditing, construction and commissioning.

Since commencing as a chemical engineering graduate involved in the design, installation and commissioning of process plant, Colin diversified into several technical specialist and senior management roles.  Colin worked for four years with HydroMet Corp. as General Manager of their Tomago Waste Recovery operation and as the Corporate Process Development Manager.  In those roles he was involved in a range of capital projects with responsibility for the design and commissioning of chemical manufacturing and waste recycling/recovery plants.  Prior to this, Colin was Plant Manager at Genkem Pty Ltd and held a number of management and engineering positions with BHP Steel and Melbourne Water.

Since joining Advitech in 1998 Colin has worked closely with the NSW DECC in assisting numerous client companies to reduce their resource intensity by various means including assessment and implimentation of waste elimination, reuse and recycling strategies.  Colin's paper at the Resource Recovery Conference will highlight opportunities and learnings, past and present, in the area of maximising resource use and will discuss what opportunities exist for NSW industry to access assistance to this end.

Presentation:  Industry assistance with achieving resource recovery and sustainability

Viviane Clément

Consultant, Edge Environment