Plumbing Connection 3-2015

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16 PLUMBING CONNECTION
GWA GROUP LIMITED
ANNOUNCES SENIOR
MANAGEMENT SUCCESSION
Following implementation
of its recent strategy review, sale of assets and return
to shareholders, Mr Peter Crowley has advised that
he will retire as GWA Group Managing Director on 30
June, 2016.
Separately, Mr Les Patterson the Chief Executive of
GWA’s Bathrooms and Kitchens business had previously
advised of his retirement and left the Group on Tuesday
30 June, 2015.
Mr Patterson has been with the Group for over 11 years
and in that time made a significant contribution to the
Group, particularly over the past three years as the leader
of the Bathrooms and Kitchens Division.
After an extensive search process, GWA is pleased to
announce the appointment of Mr Tim Salt.
Mr Salt, who is currently Managing Director of Diageo
Australia and New Zealand, joined the GWA Group on 7
September 2015 as Executive General Manager of GWA’s
Bathrooms and Kitchens business.
He will transition to the position of Managing Director of
the GWA Group to succeed Peter Crowley in that role from
1 July 2016. The period from September to June will allow
sufficient time for an orderly transition to the Managing
Director role.
Mr Crowley will take on the leadership of the Bathrooms
and Kitchens business until Mr Salt joins the business in
September.
INDUSTRY NEWS
FLUSHABLE WIPES IN THE SPOTLIGHT AGAIN
The city of Wyoming, Minnesota has filed suit against six
makers of flushable wipes, arguing that the so-called
flushable wipes are clogging their sewers and costing the
city big money.
“These flushable wipes do not degrade after flushing,”
the city of Wyoming’s suit says. “Rather, the flushable
wipes remain intact long enough to pass through private
wastewater drain pipes into the municipal sewer line,
causing clogs and other issues for municipal and county
sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants,
resulting in thousands, if not millions, of dollars of
damages.”
Industry representatives claim that the flushable wipes
aren’t the issue, contending that products that aren’t
meant to be flushed, such as baby wipes, are the real
culprits.
This isn’t the first lawsuit the wipes industry has faced.
In 2014, a New York man sued Kimberly-Clark Corp. and
Costco Wholesale Corp. in federal court with a class-
action-styled complaint that featured “homeowner horror
stories” of “flushable” wipes clogging homes’ plumbing.
Wyoming is seeking “a declaration that the defendants’
flushable wipes do not degrade and are not sewer safe,”
an order that the companies stop advertising them as
such, and the establishment of a fund to compensate
cities for the costs of cleaning and removing wipes from
their sewer systems.
“They want to make sure that people know that these
things really aren’t flushable,” Blanchfield said.
2016 Plumbing Supply Forum
TUESDAY 24 MAY - RYDGES HOTEL SYDNEY AIRPORT
Call for Presentations & Sponsors!
Australia’s premier learning and networking event for the plumbing
industry supply sector is on again in 2016. Due to popular demand the
biennial PSF returns to Rydges Airport Hotel at Sydney’s International
Terminal. Join over 125 senior management/owners from across the
industry’s leading suppliers, merchants, regulators and forward thinking
contractors, to learn what is really going on behind the industry.
Convened by Plumbing Connection Magazine, in association with the
Plumbing Products Industry Group (PPIG) for the benefit of the industry.
Plumbing Supply Forum
For further information visit: