Maryna Trepova

written by Deborah Dull, on site at GreenBiz 2026   I spent today in a room full of people who think about waste for a living. And the word that kept coming up had nothing to do with recycling. It was sovereignty. Here is the situation. The United States imports 95% of its critical mineral supply. Lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, the stuff inside every battery, every semiconductor, every electric motor. We do not make it, we do not mine much of it, and we do not control the supply chain that delivers it. That is not an energy policy problem. That is a national security problem. Now here is the part that should make you put down your coffee. A ton of smartphones contains dramatically more gold than a ton of mined ore. We are talking about concentrations that make urban mining look like a gold rush compared to digging in the ground. And yet the recovery rate for those materials, once a phone leaves its first owner, drops to around 13%. We are losing roughly 80% of the value sitting in devices right now, in drawers, in closets, in landfills. E-waste is also the fastest growing waste stream…

It might have been a short week for some, but at Supply Chain Now, it was chock-full of great interviews, conversations, livestreams, and episodes!   For a bonus episode on Saturday, Scott and Greg welcomed Tyson Steffens with Pallet Alliance and Jom Fechner with USG to the podcast to talk about building a national procurement program and optimizing your spend.   Supply Chain Now · “How and Why to Build a National Procurement Program to Optimize Your Spend”   On Monday, Scott dug back into the archives for This Week in Business History, and gave us all the story behind Labor Day.   Supply Chain Now · “This Week in Biz History for September 7th: The Story Behind Labor Day”   On Tuesday, Jamin Alvidrez joined Scott as co-host, and welcomed a couple of amazing people in logistics and transportation, Trey Griggs with Lean Sales and Nicole Glenn with Candor Expedite.   Supply Chain Now · “The Amazing People of Logistics & Transportation: Featuring Nicole Glenn & Trey Griggs”   Tim Judge with Agillitics and Nate Endicott with RateLinx joined Scott and Greg on Wednesday for a great conversation on agile decision making in supply chain.   Supply Chain Now…