Friday 31 October 2003

In UK parlance, Lewis Herbert knows a bit about turning "muck into brass".

The English waste management expert is the principal speaker at a seminar next Wednesday (5 November), Turning society's waste into wealth – a social enterprise, at the Australian Technology Park at Redfern.

The half-day seminar will focus on job creation, wealth redistribution, small business enterprise development, training, and partnerships – using waste as the resource. Case studies will highlight success stories in Australia and Britain.

It has been organised by the Australian Centre for Co-operative Research and Development (ACCORD), the University of Technology, Sydney's Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) and the Social Entrepreneurs Network. ACCORD is a joint centre of UTS and Charles Sturt University.

Lewis Herbert has 20 years experience in waste management, beginning as the Greater London Councillor responsible for the capital's rubbish mountain headache.

Throughout this time he has established a wide variety of reuse and recycling social enterprises and developed local, regional and national networks.

His current role is in the WISE (Working in Social Enterprise) project, which is challenging and developing 50 social enterprise managers, particularly in Essex and Cambridgeshire.

As WasteWISE Champion his focus is on enabling area reuse partnerships/social enterprises to develop across the east of England, including new links to private sector waste producers and recyclers.

One of the innovative enterprises launched is converting discarded computer monitors into one or two channel televisions for export to Africa.

Lewis will be joined by Australian specialists in waste management and social enterprise with ISF Director, Professor Stuart White, as facilitator.

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