2023 Food Waste Solutions Summit
May 16-18, 2023 | St.Louis, MO
Ryan Cooper
VP of Circular Economy Solutions
Rubicon
Bio:
Ryan Cooper is the VP of Circular Economy Solutions at Rubicon, a software platform that provides smart waste and recycling solutions for businesses and governments worldwide. Prior to designing, implementing and managing thousands of organics recycling programs at Rubicon, Ryan helped develop composting programs for businesses and municipalities at the Sustainable Packaging Coalition. Ryan received his Master of Science in Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona, where his thesis focused on municipal composting and anaerobic digestion programs. Ryan is on the Board of Directors of the US Composting Council and is a certified permaculture designer and teacher.
Schedule
Wednesday, May 17th
11:00am - 12:00pm
From Garbage to Gold: Uncovering the Value of Recycling, Composting, and Anaerobic Digestion
Breakout Session (Running Concurrently)
Nearly 70% of surplus food is treated as true “waste,” meaning it is either left in the fields after harvest, incinerated, dumped, deposited in the sewer, sent to landfill, or applied to the land. But much of this could have been used for other purposes — in fact, recycling and composting offer one of the largest opportunities for decreasing the amount of waste in our food system. What can be done to ensure we’re finding the highest and best use for any food or scraps that remain? While there are many sites today in the U.S. that utilize anaerobic digesters, very few are dedicated to processing food scraps. This session will dig up the value of composting and anaerobic digestion, unveil the adoption of these solutions, and bring to the surface the infrastructure gaps that hinder these efforts.