INTERVIEW
9recyclinginternational.com | January/February | 2020
through hearings and fired within a
year.
They replaced me with an employee
from the NMCI team who wanted to
work for the government. However,
he did not obey the law by procuring
recycled content products.’
Since you Started your
whiStleblowing, haS there
been any change for the
better regarding the uSe
of recycled content in
productS purchaSed by the
navy?
‘Things do not look like they have
changed much in reference to the
numbers being reported publicly by
the Navy. The bureaucrats and politi-
cians are playing a new game right
now where they take a statistical sam-
ple of all the contracts that have
green clauses.’
looking back, waS it all
worth it?
‘It’s been a painful experience, not
least for me personally. The US Navy
has hidden the real reason – the whis-
tleblowing – for kicking me out. I was
fired for acting in an unsafe manner
by standing on a chair. How can you
be dismissed for standing on a chair?
Overall, my fight has not been fruitful
enough. Official government reports
claim the Defense Department has a
compliance rate of 100%. This cannot
be true because the Navy does not
report, or at least not accurately, and
resists to doing so.
If you play the game by the rules out-
lined in the law, you should create a
lot less waste by buying recycled
products, that’s for sure. And that’s
what we all should be pursuing: a bet-
ter environment and far less waste. So
if you ask me, would you do it again,
the answer is ‘YES’, I’d do it again. If I
don’t, no one else would.’
Fotobijschrift
kaderkop
??
David Mayeske: ‘The US Navy has
hidden the real reason – the whis-
tleblowing – for kicking me out’
08-09_usrecyclingwhistleblower-davidmayeske.indd 9 15-01-20 14:17
