Academic Marian Chertow pioneered the field of industrial symbiosis, which is concerned with the shared use and management of resources and waste by companies in the same geographical area. “…Waste is no longer an unavoidable liability, but a potential asset: power plants might sell their coal ash to the cement industry; pharmaceutical manufacturers might offer their slurry outflow as fertilizer to farms in expanding networks,” she wrote in 2012. “What was once expenditure becomes revenue; red becomes black.”

Chertow worked in environmental management in the public and private sectors for 10 years: as President of the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority, she was charged with developing a billion-dollar waste infrastructure system for the state.

She has testified on waste, recycling and other environmental issues before committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives and regularly lectures internationally.