Eric Lombardi is the executive director of Eco-Cycle International and has had a long career in community resource conservation, social enterprise development and non-profit (NGO) organizational management since 1980.

Lombardi ran Eco-Cycle, a nationwide pioneer in recycling, from 1989-2014, a developed it to become the largest community-based recycling social enterprise in the United States with a staff of 70 and processing of more than 50,000 tons of diverse recycled materials per year (2014). Lombardi is recognized as an authority on developing comprehensive community-based resource recovery programs and is often a keynote speaker and consultant on the social and technical aspects of creating a “Zero Waste–or Darn Near” society.

Lombardi has experience both nationally and internationally as a project consultant, keynote speaker and workshop leader for government and private sector clients across the United States, and in New Zealand, England, France, Italy, Scotland, Romania, American Samoa, Tobago and Saipan. He was invited to the Clinton White House in 1998 as one of the Top 100 USA Recyclers, and he co-founded the U.S. GrassRoots Recycling Network, and the Zero Waste International Alliance, based in Wales.