Nathan Rutz is a professional composter which means he gets to drive big machines, start hundreds of seedlings, think critically about our social-ecosystem, and talk about poop and corpses in professional settings. He works as Director of Soil at Rust Belt Riders Composting in Cleveland Ohio, a worker-owned cooperative that rescues food from the landfill and makes and sells compost and compost based products for home gardeners and organic growers under the name Tilth Soil.  He is a Certified Compost Operations Manager through the US Compost Council and elected board member of the Ohio Organics Council. Rust Belt Riders won best small scale composter of the year from USCC in 2019, and a special recognition award from SWANA-Buckeye chapter in 2022. Nathan is glad to be living on Earth and hopes that compost can play a role in healing broken places while making use of squandered sunshine.

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At WIRMC, Nathan will give an optimistic but realistic and grounded vision of waste management in 2050, drawing on emerging currents in resource recovery, particularly the ideas of circular economies.