FLOYD COUNTY — Someone who has been known around the community in a variety of roles will take on a new one Monday as operations manager for the Floyd County Solid Waste District.
Scott Stewart wears many hats in Floyd County, from board member for the New Albany-Floyd County Building Authority to CASA Floyd County board member to representing the Floyd County Commissioners on the Economic Development Council at One Southern Indiana.
Now Stewart is ready to take on a leadership role in another topic he is passionate about: sustainability.
“I’ve long been passionate for the environment, sustainability in particular and so that is something that appeals to me,” he said.
Stewart is taking over as operations manager since the previous manager, Mary Lou Byerly, retired.
Floyd County Commissioner John Schellenberger, a member of the solid waste board of directors, praised Byerly for her efforts transforming the county’s recycling center at 6954 Highway 150 Galena. He also commended her for always providing an extra set of hands in the field when necessary.
When the solid waste board hired Stewart for the position, one of the main tasks for him was to increase the rate of recycling in the county.
Stewart understands the value in recycling when looking at the entire supply chain, noting that it results in less materials being extracted from the earth and also conserves natural resources.
While changing the impact on the planet can seem like a big goal, the efforts for it start small.
“While recycling is a small part of that effort, it’s a significant part of the effort, and it’s something that we all can do starting at home,” Stewart said.
Increasing opportunities for recycling has been a mission of Stewart’s since he worked as a communications manager and a member of the environmental management team at Proctor and Gamble.
“It was a significant effort at the time to communicate that the bottles of Spic and Span were made from 100% recyclable PET, polyethylene terephthalate, and they in turn could be recycled. Creating a market for recycled products was a big deal back then,” he said.
Going forward there needs to be more educational and operational partnerships to build awareness of the need to reduce the amount of disposed material, Stewart said.
“I think at the heart of this will require greater involvement from students, be they in grade school, high school or college, in order to accelerate the continuous improvement that our board seeks,” he said.
Not only is Stewart confident that his past leadership roles have prepared him for this new undertaking, but aspects of his personal life have as well.
Stewart’s daughter-in-law is obtaining her masters in sustainability in Switzerland, a country that has a recycling rate of 50%, compared to Indiana’s 19%. He also has a mentor who just retired as CEO of Unilever and was chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
Stewart was chosen from a pool of four candidates; the other three applicants were workers from the solid waste department.
Schellenberger said right now the department is at a crossroads between where they are now and where they want to go. He said he is very happy to have Stewart on board.
“Scott, he’s got a long history of being like a visionary,” Schellenberger said.
Schellenberger is hopeful that having an operations manager come from outside the department will bring in different perspective and new ideas.
“With the building authority he kind of thinks outside of the box,” he said.
