New Vice President of the Waste Division at VKU

Berlin/Jena, July 3, 2024
The Executive Board of the German Association of Local Utilities (VKU) unanimously elected Uwe Feige (59) as the new Vice President for Waste Management at its board meeting. He succeeds Patrick Hasenkamp (66), Operations Manager of Abfallwirtschaftsbetriebe Münster (AWM), who has held the position since 2011.
Uwe Feige has been Plant Manager of Kommunalservice Jena since 1992 and has been the new Chairman of the VKU Steering Committee for Waste Management and Urban Cleanliness VKS since May 2024.

"First of all, I would like to thank you for the trust you have placed in me. I am very much looking forward to the challenge," says Uwe Feige, the new Vice President at VKU. "Standing still is a step backwards. And the waste management industry is always providing new impetus. In recent years, our member companies have developed from waste disposal companies to utilities in the municipal sector. In Jena, for example, we have launched the 'Tauschhaus' (exchange house), setting an example for reuse and involving citizens. A modern circular economy can only work together. The advantages of the interaction between the three sectors are important to me. For example, climate neutrality and the heating transition through municipal heating planning: in order for us to heat in a climate-neutral way, the importance of biogenic projects in waste management is likely to increase in the future, such as through biogas, which we obtain from waste, or waste heat from waste-to-energy plants."

"In Uwe Feige, a proven waste expert and industry figure was unanimously elected as the new VKU Vice President," said VKU Managing Director Ingbert Liebing. "We are delighted to be working with him to drive forward the relevant future topics of waste management. Be it the development of the National Circular Economy Strategy and its implementation or the orientation of waste management and urban cleaning towards greenhouse gas neutrality, for example through CCS. Another relevant topic will continue to be the need for skilled workers, an area in which Uwe Feige brings just as much expertise."
The election of a new VKU Vice President was due to the retirement of Patrick Hasenkamp as Operations Manager of AWM.
"I would like to express my sincere thanks to Patrick Hasenkamp for his many years of dedicated work as Chairman of the Steering Committee," said Liebing. "He was our 'Mister Waste Management' and managed the integration process of the formerly independent waste division VKS into VKU extremely well. His great professional expertise and high media presence have brought the positions of municipal waste management very far forward over the past twelve and a half years - from the fight for better recycling and against the littering of our cities to the single-use plastic fund and tackling the relief effort in the Ahr valley."