Vaughan Levitzke

Vaughan Levitzke is well known for his dedication to improving South Australia's waste and recycling sector and beginning its circular economy journey . At the SA EPA he helped expand container deposits in 2002 and regulated the tyre industry, before becoming inaugural Chief Executive of Zero Waste SA in 2003, a separate statutory government entity with its own Act. There he went on to oversee 5 waste strategies, Australia's first legislated single-use plastic bags ban (2009), the formation of Green Industries SA (2016), and Australia's first circular economy strategy (2017). He also delivered Australia's first legislated ban on single-use plastic items (2021) and led the waste cleanup following the 2019–2020 bushfires, alongside investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in recycling infrastructure and research grants in SA over many years.

Vaughan received the Public Service Medal in 2015 and the international IconSWM-CE Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021. He left government in July 2021 after 43 years, including 17 as a Chief Executive. He now leads his consulting firm, Circular Economy Advisory, is a former member of the Commonwealth Government's Ministerial Circular Economy Advisory Group and is a board member of Product Stewardship Australia.