Rethinking Downtown Commercial Waste Management

Suki Janssen – Athens-Clarke County Solid Waste Department
LinkedIn: Suki Janssen


Suki Janssen is Director of the Athens-Clarke County Solid Waste Department, where she has spent more than two decades helping shape the County’s approach to waste reduction, recycling, composting, and public education. Before joining Athens-Clarke County, she worked with Keep Georgia Beautiful and began her career as a middle school science teacher, a background that still shows in her practical, education-led approach to behavior change and public engagement. She is widely recognized in Georgia’s solid waste and recycling community for her leadership, including bringing one of the state’s first Centers for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM) to Georgia and serving in leadership roles with SWANA and other industry organizations. In this session, Suki will share lessons from downtown Athens on managing shared commercial waste and recycling in a busy, high-traffic environment.

Gerard Brown – Rodent Man Consulting
LinkedIn: Gerard Brown

Gerard Brown is a nationally recognized rodent control expert with more than 40 years of experience in environmental public health, including more than 25 years as Program Manager of the District of Columbia Department of Health’s Rodent and Vector Control Program. A native Washingtonian, he has built his career around addressing urban pest challenges through education, prevention, and practical public health strategy. In Washington, D.C., he developed and led rodent control programs based on Integrated Pest Management (IPM), with a strong focus on sanitation, habitat modification, monitoring, and training. His work also helped build partnerships across government, private organizations, and community groups, and the District’s program has often been cited as a model for other cities. Through The Rodent Man Consulting LLC, Gerard now shares his decades of experience with organizations seeking more effective and sustainable approaches to rodent control.

Nigel Deacon – metroSTOR North America
LinkedIn: Nigel Deacon

Nigel Deacon leads metroSTOR North America, providers of controlled access deposit systems for municipal, multifamily, and commercial waste and recycling applications. His work centers on helping customers focus on how secure containment and controlled access shape user behavior and improve system performance over time. Drawing on metroSTOR’s experience across shared-use environments, Nigel will frame the discussion around the infrastructure criteria that shape downtown commercial waste management.