Dive Brief:
- Gov. Gavin Newsom last week appointed Zoe Heller, a longtime circular economy and zero waste specialist, as the new director of CalRecycle.
- Pending state Senate confirmation, Heller will fill the role previously held by Rachel Machi Wagoner. Wagoner was appointed in December 2020 and left the position earlier this year. Wagoner has since started a legislative and regulatory consulting business, RMW Strategies.
- Heller is CalRecycle’s deputy director of the circular economy division. Industry groups say her industry knowledge and stakeholder engagement experience will help her oversee a department known for undertaking complex, multi-year projects.
Dive Insight:
Heller will step into a demanding role. CalRecycle is working to implement numerous high-profile policies: SB 1383, the state’s major organic waste diversion law; SB 343, a recyclability claims law; SB 54, the state’s EPR for packaging law; and multiple updates to the bottle bill, among other initiatives.
“Coming from within CalRecycle, Zoe has the experience and knowledge of the complex issues of the many programs and responsibilities facing the director,” said Jeff Donlevy, general manager at Ming’s Recycling and a member of CalRecycle’s Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling, in an email. “Zoe is known and respected by the key stakeholders of the programs, especially [the] beverage container program.” Donlevy credited Heller’s work rolling out grant funding to bolster the state’s container deposit system infrastructure and operations.
Scott Smithline, who served as CalRecycle’s director from 2015 to 2019, also applauded Heller’s appointment. “There has never been more consequential work in front of CalRecycle. Zoe has the experience, skills and temperament to lead the [department] through it,” he said in a post on LinkedIn, in response to Californians Against Waste’s support for her appointment.
Heller has been CalRecycle’s circular economy division director since 2023 but has served in several other roles there from 2017 to 2022. She has worked as deputy director of policy development and as deputy director of the Materials Management and Local Assistance division.
Heller worked at the EPA from 2006 to 2017, where she was a manager of the zero waste section, served as special assistant to regional administrator, and worked as an environmental protection specialist. Prior to that, she was a research and policy analyst at the Chicago nonprofit Center for Neighborhood Technology.
Rachel Oster, co-founder of the Recycle Right Coalition, said Heller was already known for her circular economy work under EPA, and has since become “ a respected policy voice” at CalRecycle while implementing aggressive policy mandates for source reduction, reuse and recycling. “Since these policies are now impacting almost every California resident and business, Zoe has built a strong connection and relationship with the variety of stakeholders at the table,” she said.
CalRecycle is formally known as the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery. It manages permitting, compliance, recycling grant funding, market development, education and disaster debris management, among other tasks. Heller will oversee a staff of more than 1,000 people, which could expand further under the governor’s proposed FY25 budget.
This story first appeared in the Waste Dive: Recycling newsletter. Sign up for the weekly emails here.
