ISSE Staff
Catherine A. Wilt
Director of Policy, Center for Clean Products
Office Phone: (865) 974-1915
Email: catwilt@utk.edu
M.S., Environmental Planning, University of Tennessee
B.A., Political Science and History, University of Tennessee
Catherine Wilt is the Director of Policy for the Center for Clean Products at the University of Tennessee, where she has worked since 1990. Ms. Wilt has significant research experience in identifying environmental, regulatory and business trends related to integrated product policy, pollution prevention, recycling, environmentally-preferable procurement, and waste management, as well as analysis of international, federal and state environmental regulations. Her past research has culminated in development of national and state policy and planning initiatives for pollution prevention and product stewardship. She has served as research coordinator and facilitator of key, national multi-stakeholder dialogues for product stewardship of specific products, including work with the electronics and carpet sectors. She has been a frequent contributor to policy dialogues and frameworking by the Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development, the US EPA, and Environment Canada on producer responsibility and product stewardship trends.
Ms. Wilt has published widely on pollution prevention and sustainability issues in such publications as Environment, World Resource Review, Policy Studies Journal, Journal of Environment and Development, Air and Waste and Resource Recycling. Ms. Wilt has a B.A. in Political Science and History and a Masters in Environmental Planning from the University of Tennessee; she is currently a candidate in the Erasmus University International Ph.D. Program in Industrial Ecology and Sustainability.
Ms. Wilt is a past President and Chair of the National Recycling Coalition. She is active in many local, state, and national environmental organizations.
Her hobbies include organic gardening, tie-dyeing, and day-dreaming about a simpler life. She and her husband, David, have one daughter and run an unruly household of several cats and a dog.
Selected Publications:
- Catherine A. Wilt, “The Future of the Product Stewardship Dialogues in the US: Lessons Learned from Experiences with the Electronics and Carpet Industries,” Resource Recycling, October 2005.
- Jean H. Peretz, Athena Bradley, K. Lynn Douglass, and Catherine A. Wilt, "Wired Waste," Tennessee Public Works, September, 2004.
- Catherine A. Wilt and Garth Hickle, "Carpet Recycling Afoot: A Voluntary Agreement for Product Stewardship in the United States," Resource Recycling, February 2002.
- Catherine A. Wilt and Garth Hickle, "Product Stewardship Initiatives in the United States: A National Agreement for Carpet," OECD Seminar on Extended Producer Responsibility: EPR Programme Implementation and Assessment, December 2001.
- David L. Feldman and Catherine A. Wilt, "Climate-Change Policy from a Bioregional Perspective: Reconciling Spatial Scale with Human and Ecological Impact," in Bioregionalism, Michael V. McGinnis, ed. (London: Routledge, 1999).
- Gary A. Davis, Catherine A. Wilt, and Jack Barkenbus, "Extended Product Responsibility: A New Principle for Sustainable Production and Consumption," Environment, September 1997.
- Catherine A. Wilt, "The Civil War of Waste: Who Will Ultimately Control the Flow of Solid Waste?" in Public Works Administration: Current Public Policy Perspectives, ed. Lucille Brewer (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997).