California Governor appoints new director of CalRecycle

California Governor Jerry Brown has appointed Caroll Mortensen to serve as the director of the State’s Department of Resource Recovery and Recycling (CalRecycle).

For the last decade, Mortensen has served as one of the California Legislature’s senior environmental policy consultants, most recently as consultant to the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, and advisor to Committee Chair Senator Joe Simitian. Prior to that Mortensen worked for more than 13 years at the California Integrated Waste Management board.

As senior consultant for the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, Mortensen’s principal responsibilities have involved analyzing and providing recommendations on dozens of legislative proposals related to solid and hazardous waste, air and water quality heard before the committee. She was also chief consultant for the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee under Assembly Member Wes Chesbro for two years and worked on issues related to hazardous waste, pesticides, brownfield and other related policy areas. Previously, she spent 13 years at the Integrated Waste Management board working in a wide variety of positions including legislative director for 4 years.

As director, Mortensen will be responsible for implementing AB 341, recently signed legislation that will increase California’s recycling goal to 75 percent by 2020 and a requirement that all commercial enterprises implement recycling programs. California currently diverts an estimated 60 percent of generated solid waste from landfill.