President, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Neil Seldman, Ph.D., co-founded the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and is Director of the Waste to Wealth Initiative. Seldman is a leading recycling and zero waste activist assisting citizen, environmental and small business organizations in stopping garbage incinerators in scores of US cities. Subsequently, he works with these cities to increase recovery of materials from the waste stream and grow the local economy by adding value to materials through local processing, manufacturing and job creation. Prior to founding ILSR Seldman worked in manufacturing of consumer products and was professor of political science.
Seldman has played an important role in the development of recycling and zero waste in the US. His articles and essays are distributed nationally and internationally. In 1979-80 Seldman co-coordinated the National Recycling Research Agenda with 120 of the nation’s leading recycling practitioners and activists. On Earth Day 1980, he co-coordinated the First National Recycling Congress in, Fresno, CA with 400 participants, at which the National Recycling Coalition was founded. Over the next four decades he co-founded the Grass Roots Recycling Network, 1995, Zero Waste International Alliance, 2004 and Save the Albatross Coalition, 2015.
