National Zero Waste Conference - Keynote Showcase 2025

All activities are on the Main Stage – except Concurrent Sessions.
Click session titles to access their descriptions.

Day 1 (Business)

Deconstruction Dave Bennink

Director of the Building Deconstruction Network

Dave Bennink is Director of the Building Deconstruction Network and owns Re-Use Consulting. He trains groups focusing on reusable materials and embodied carbon, and has salvaged/deconstructed over 5000 projects in North America, existing within the circular economy since 1993.

Significant to the City, Dave has formed the NYC Circular Construction Network whose goal is to unite various projects in the NYC area that are working towards a circular economy, spurred by the recent ‘Circular Design and Construction Guidelines’. The network’s focus is on driving action and facilitating “material matchmaking” between current and future projects.

Stefan Moedritzer

Circularity and Embodied Carbon Lead – Google

Stefan leads waste, circularity, and embodied carbons efforts for Google’s global real estate and operations. He partners with Google’s design, construction, food, and facilities team’s to bring safe and circular materials into Google’s ecosystem and maximize their lifespan. Previously, Stefan has worked in sustainability as a consultant, in the public sector, and for several green finance startups.

Day 2 (Community)

Bob Gedert

Adjunct Professor – Xavier University and Writer

Bob Gedert has 45 years of experience in building local economic development practices with zero-waste goals through private-public partnerships that utilize local markets for recyclables through innovative entrepreneurship and collaborative business networks. In his retirement, he is teaching climate change classes at Xavier University in Cincinnati and publishing his first book on the relationship of plastics to climate change. Untangling Plastics: The Missing Link in Mitigating Climate Change, to be published in November 2025, explores the impacts of plastics on human health, the environment, and climate change.

Previously, Bob served as the department director of Austin Resource Recovery, leading the city toward zero waste goals. In addition to his tenure at Austin, he has served in the leadership of resource recovery in many communities including the City of Fresno, CA as chief of recycling operations; the Counties of Auglaize and Highland in Ohio; the City of Cincinnati in Ohio and communities across Indiana as Chief of Source Reduction and Recycling with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Bob is the Past-President of the National Recycling Coalition and previously served on the board of directors for the Indiana Recycling Coalition and the Association of Ohio Recyclers. He was also the executive director of the California Resource Recovery Association and a founding member of the California Product Stewardship Council and the National Stewardship Action Council.

In 2019, Bob was awarded the Lifetime Recycling Achievement Award from the National Recycling Coalition. In 2024, Bob was selected for inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who for Expertise in Education and Waste Management.

Ruth Abbe

President – Zero Waste USA

Ruth Abbe is a Zero Waste practitioner with more than 25 years of experience in recycling and composting program and facility development and outreach and technical assistance. As president of Zero Waste USA, she is working with municipalities across the U.S. to develop the social and physical infrastructure to achieve Zero Waste. As co-chair of the Global Recycling Council of CRRA, she facilitated its workshop series “Turning the Ship Around |Wading Through the Plastic Seas” highlighting the issues of plastic pollution and problem markets. She has expertise in organics and commercial technical assistance, waste audits, facility and collection procurement, contract negotiation, program planning, financial analysis and stakeholder engagement. Ruth has developed Zero Waste plans and programs for Austin, Dallas, Boston, Los Angeles and Palo Alto, California.