Daniel Lantz, MBA, DBA, EP, MCIWM
Principal, Crow's Nest Environmental
Dan has spent his entire career in and around solid waste.  He started out as a Waste Management Master Coordinator in Centre and South Hastings, trying to find a solution to the waste issues in the County.  He then moved to Proctor & Redfern (later purchased by EarthTech) where he spent 11 years moving up to Manager, Waste Diversion.  There he developed the first Recycling Collection Cost Model that allowed municipalities to examine the implications of different recyclables (and or organics, leaf and yard waste or waste) collection methodologies, including comparing multi-stream collection versus two stream versus single stream.  Here he started looking into Material Recovery Facility (MRF) operations for the Canadian Plastics Industry Association and American Plastics Council.  His work in optimizing operations resulted in clients realizing savings of more than $1 million annually.  Combined, this is where he built up his expertise in examining the costs of recycling programs, both collection and processing under single stream and two stream scenarios. 

Dan was a pioneer looking at optical sorting for plastics recycling.  Working with the Environment and Plastics Industry Council (EPIC, now the Canadian Plastics Industry Council, CPIA), in 1992, he travelled to Eugene, Oregon to observe and understand the capabilities of the first plastics optical sorter in North America; one that could sort just one container at  time, in a singulated manner.  Dan also worked designing recycling programs for numerous municipalities across Ontario, reviewing and designing recyclables processing operations for municipalities across Canada and examining environmental funding policies in support of diversion. 

Dan spent five more years as the Business Unit and Practice Leader in Solid Waste for MacViro Consultants (later purchased by Genivar).  Here he continued to develop his expertise and service both public and private sector clients in all aspects surrounding recycling program and MRF design, development, costing and implementation.

Dan also worked for Stewardship Ontario as Director, Technical Services, in the development of the Blue Box Program Plan which was implemented in 2003.  He was responsible for developing the now infamous stewards pay-in-model that determined how much stewards would pay for the use of specific types of packaging.  This work involved extensive development and implementation of activity-based costing methodologies to determine the cost of management of all types of packaging and printed paper.

In 2013, Dan, working for Green by Nature EPR, led the development of the RFP submission to Multi-Material British Columbia which resulted in GBN winning the contract for the processing of all recyclables across the province.  He continued as COO of GBN, implementing the new program in 2014, in just over three months.  The ground-breaking and innovative approach to managing recyclables, redefined the capabilities of the industry; more types of packaging are managed in that program than any other in North America. 

Dan also has six years of MRF operational experience, as VP Operations, gained working with Cascades Recovery.  Responsible for overseeing operations of MRFs across Canada, he gained a lot of critical and important knowledge on the potential and limitations of recycling facilities under various program types including single stream and two stream.  Here he also started working directly with consumer product manufacturers and packaging producers on packaging design and use.  He has helped numerous companies understand the implications of their packaging design decisions relative to the capabilities of the recycling system.  Today, he continues this work both directly with companies and through PAC  where he is Director of PAC NEXT.

Having been buried in waste his entire career, Dan would like to think he has made a difference, helping governments implement and operate effective and efficient recycling programs and private corporations design and use responsible packaging.  He has written or presented more than 100 papers on waste diversion, including recyclables program design and costing, sustainable materials management, extended producer responsibility, and the circular economy.  He has spoken at conferences across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain.  If the topic is related to the management of printed paper and packaging, from design through post-use management, Dan has a level of expertise garnered through experience working across the post-use supply chain, that can help answer your questions and provide you with viable solutions.

Education:
DBA, California Southern University, Irvine, California (2020)
Dissertation topic:  Extended Producer Responsibility as an Economic Instrument to Effect Environmentally Responsible Packaging Design.
MBA, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario (2002)
M.Sc., The University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland (1986)
B.Sc., Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario (1984)

Educational Honours:
Golden Key International Honour Society (2019)
California Southern University Delta Mu Delta International Honor Society for Business (2018)
University of Toronto Rotman School of Management Bregman Scholar (2002)

Professional Designations:
EP, Canadian Environmental Professional designations in Waste, and Sustainability
MCIWM, Member, Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, United Kingdom

Professional Affiliations:
PAC Packaging Consortium - PAC NEXT Director

Linkedin Profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-lantz-38a36423/