Heinz Böni

Heinz Böni is head of the research group “Critical Materials and Resource Efficiency” at Empa, Switzerland. He has more than 30 years of experience in development cooperation, as engineer and consultant and as researcher in Waste and Resources Management. His actual scope of work covers WEEE recycling, auditing WEEE recycling companies and capacity building in WEEE management in developing countries.

Heinz Böni has a degree in Rural and Environmental Engineering from ETH Zürich with postgraduate studies in Water Supply and Wastewater Management. Working for several years with UNICEF in Nepal he acquired expertise in sanitation, water supply and waste management in developing countries. In 1992 he got appointed as branch office manager of a private engineering and consulting firm and after 6 years decided to found the engineering and consulting company Ecoparter Ltd. for which he worked for more 5 years. In 2001 he was nominated at Empa, the Material Science and Technology Institute of ETH as head of a team for international technology cooperation projects in Africa, Latin-America and Asia. His thematic focus in the last 15 years was in the area of resource efficient production and management of electronic waste with a geographical focus on Latin America and Europe.