Kristel Vandenbroek elected as New Chair of the European Compost Network ECN
At its Annual meeting on 7 March 2019 the General Assembly elected Kristel Vandenbroek as new Chair of the European Compost Network. Kristel Vandenbroek, representing the Flemish Compost and Digestate Association ‘Vlaco’ in ECN, will lead together with the Vice-chair Massimo Centemero, representing the Italian Composting and Biogas Association ‘CIC’, the ECN in the next three years. Besides the new leadership, two further candidates were elected on the ECN Board: Alin Murariu, representing the Romanian Compost Association and Jens Måge, representing Avfall Norge in ECN.
Unfortunately, the former chair Henrik Lystad, representing Avfall Norge in ECN, stepped down from the Board due to new challenges. The Annual meeting and the Executive Director, Stefanie Siebert, thanked Henrik Lystad for his long-time engagement in ECN and his successful and sophisticated leadership over the last 4 years.
During his four years chairmanship, ECN has been recognised as the voice of the biological treatment sector in Brussels and Europe. With the achievement that separate collection of bio-waste (or separated and recycled at source) will be obligatory in all member states by 31 December 2023, bio-waste management will play a great role in developing a circular economy in Europe.
Thank has been given to the resigning long-time Vice-chair, Mait Kriipsalu, representing the Estonian Life Science University of Tartu since 2008 in ECN. Against his background as environmental scientist and as expert in the Estonian Waste Cluster he chaired the ECN working group ‘Eastern and starting countries in bio-waste management’ by organising several workshops and conferences. He successfully transferred the European Quality Assurance Scheme for Compost and Digestate (ECN-QAS) into the accredited Estonian Certification Centre of Recycled Materials.
Kristel Vandenbroek thanked the Annual meeting for giving her the confidence and responsibility and closed the meeting by saying ‘Now, it’s time to follow up the great policy success on the obligation of bio-waste separate collection by implementing this on local and regional level and by placing high quality compost and digestate-based products on the European market’.
The press release is available as pdf here.