NOMINATIONS ARE OPEN
for the 2023 Environmental Achievement Awards
To submit your nomination for this year’s Environmental Achievement Award, please click here.
Every year, the EMA hosts our annual Environmental Achievement Awards ceremony.
This event gives us the opportunity to acknowledge, recognize, and award those in the environmental industry for their outstanding efforts in the forward progression for environmental sustainability and change in three ways: student scholarships, individual/company achievement awards, and as introduced in 2018 an individual legend award
The Environmental Achievement Award is awarded to someone who has gone above and beyond in their work within the environmental industry.
This year we honored Dawn D. New-Echlin, Vice President of Commercial Sales at Cirba Solutions. Heading into 2020, our members voted Dawn (of then Battery Solutions) for her work not only in battery recycling, but her tenure in recycling at large. In her career in environmental she’s been in the PCB contaminated sewer lines of Detroit Water and Sewer, the top of the Cat Cracker at Marathon Refinery, and in the pigeon poop-filled attics of Detroit Public Schools; all with the same intention: to get closest to the source of the problem so she could be the greatest advocate for the solution.
Dawn’s skill set started in recycling with BestWay Recycling in 1991 and moved through industrial services, hazardous and liquid waste management, garage hauling, household hazardous waste programming, and finally full circle back to commodity recycling. In 2019, she was a representative broker for GLR Solutions for Fiber Commodities and a managing partner for New Dawn Solutions for plastics and other materials when she was asked to be the EMA’s inaugural enviroCHAT guest speaker. Leading a discussion on the Michigan Recycling Coalition’s efforts in highlighting opportunities for businesses and communities to reduce waste costs and maximize value from recycling programs, her deep-rooted passion and commitment to the environmental space left everyone inspired to do their part in helping the cause. Later that year Dawn invited the EMA Board of Directors for a tour of the Battery Solutions facility in Wixom, showcasing their work being at the forefront of battery recycling technology.
Fast forward to 2022 and it unanimous that Dawn deserves the recognition tenfold. From her continued work with the Michigan Recycling Coalition, to her fresh appointment as a Board Member of Suppliers Partnership for the Environment, to the incredible strides she has led in circular economy strategies for battery recycling with Cirba Solutions, to being such an inspiring woman in leadership, we thank and recognize Dawn for all her continued efforts in the environmental sphere and the continuous good she puts into this world.