8 February, 2012 | Publication
Prof David C Wilson is the scientific co-ordinator for the ISWA Task Force which has been tasked to report to the 2012 World Congress in Florence on a number of major challenges posed to the long-term sustainability of waste management by increasing globalisation. He is also co-leading, with his Imperial College colleague Dr Costas Velis, the Task Force’s work on the informal recycling sector in developing countries, which is one of his long-standing research interests. This part of the work kicked-off with an international workshop in Buenos Aires, held alongside the ISWA Beacon Conference on Waste Prevention and Recycling, on 21-23 June, 2011. November 2012 update: A July 2012 progress report, a general paper and a peer-reviewed paper on the informal sector integration work were all published for the Florence Conference. An update on DCW’s informal sector related activities is also available.
The impacts of globalisation on waste management are a major concern for the International Solid Wastes Association (ISWA), bringing new and unprecedented challenges for the long-term sustainability of both material resources and society. Recognising these substantial changes for solid waste management, ISWA established the Globalisation and Waste Management (GWM) Task Force (TF) in September 2010. The TF aims to examine and make recommendations on a range of issues arising from the interaction between globalisation and waste management, including for example the dependence of Europe and North America on exporting materials to Asia for recycling in order to sustain their high recycling rates. The TF will present its interim findings to the ISWA World Congress in Florence in September 2012.
One focus for the ISWA GWM TF is to investigate and address the issues around informal sector waste management activities. Many developing country cities aspire to modern waste management systems, a key feature of which is their high recycling rates of clean, source separated materials, driven in large part by the need to find a cost-effective alternative to expensive anddifficult to site waste treatment and disposal facilities. Most low-income cities already have informal sector recycling systems, which are driven solely by the revenues derived from selling recovered materials, even though they are saving the formal sector money by reducing waste quantities. There is clear potential for ‘win-win’ co-operation between the formal and informal sectors, as providing support to the informal sector, to build recycling rates and to address some of the social issues, could reduce the overall costs of waste management for the formal sector.
This part of the work kicked-off with an international workshop onIntegrating informal sector recyclers into waste management in developing countries, which was held in Buenos Aires, alongside the ISWA Beacon Conference on Waste Prevention and Recycling, 21-23 June, 2011. The opening presentation by Costas Velis and DCW explored global experiences, and looked at Key steps towards effective inclusion in 21st century SWM systems. They also gave a keynote presentation at a Clinton Global Initiative meeting on the Informal Waste Sector in New York on 19 September 2011, entitled: Informal sector recycling at the crossroads – challenges of stakeholder systems. Click here to see a November 2012 update on progress.
8 December, 2010 | Awards
Anne Scheinberg, David C Wilson and Ljiljana Rodic have won the 2010 ISWA Publication Award for their book Solid Waste Managment in the World’s Cities, which they co-authored and edited for UN-Habitat. The award was presented to Prof Wilson and Ms Scheinberg by the ISWA President Jeff Cooper at a ceremony in the Town Hall at the ISWA World Congress in Hamburg on 15 November 2010, which was attended by Graham Alabaster on behalf of UN-Habitat. As a result of the award, Professor Wilson and Ms Scheinberg were invited to write the guest editorial for the December 2010 issue of Waste Managment & Research, under the title ‘What is good practice in solid waste management’.
The International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) presents an annual publication award to the best publication worldwide in the field of solid waste management. The 2010 award has gone to the three lead authors of this flagship publication, the third in UN-Habitat’s series on Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities. The book draws out good practice using an innovative framework based on Integrated Sustainable Waste Managment (ISWM) as a ‘lens’ for viewing a city’s solid waste system: the focus is not only on the physical elements of the system (collection, disoposal and resource recovery) but also on the critical governance aspects that must be addressed for a system to be successful and sustainable (user and provider inclusivity, financial sustainability and sound institutions/ proactive policies). A new and innovative methodology was developed to gather consistent and comparable data from 20 cities, chosen to represent cities – rich and poor, large and small – in all six inhabited continents.
The award was presented to the three lead authors/ editors, but was the collective effort of a much larger team. More than 35 waste professionals contributed, largely drawn from a global community of practice, the Collaborative Working Group on Solid Waste Managment in Low- and Middle- Income Countries; in addition to teams in each of the 20 cities. The project was intiated and guided by Graham Alabaster on behalf of UN-Habitat.
Jeff Cooper, ISWA President and member of the Award judging panel, writes: ‘I commend this publication as essential reading for waste managers and all those concerned about resource management and the recovery of waste for further productive use.’
The book has recieved a number of positive and high profile reviews, including in the December 2010 issue of Waste Management & Research and the January 2011 issue of the member journal of the UK Chartered Institution of Wastes management, CIWM.
The book is published by Earthscan. A 20% discount is available on their website, using discount code AF20. 2012 update: the book is now also available via the WASTE website.
8 June, 2007 | Conference
DCW chaired the CIWM conference Hazardous Waste Management – an Inspector’s Report, which reviewed progress with implementing the UK’s new regulatory regime.
Eight invited speakers provided different perspectives: the conclusion was that, while progress is being made, there is still some way to go. DCW is Chair of CIWM’s Special Interest Group on Hazardous Wastes, and represents CIWM on both the Defra Hazardous Waste Forum and the ISWA Working Group on Hazardous Waste.
8 June, 2007 | Publication, Waste Management
The June issue of the ISWA journal Waste Management & Research (WM&R) is a special issue on Driving waste management towards sustainable development. DCW wrote the keynote paper on ‘Development drivers for waste management’.
http://worklife.wharton.upenn.edu/sildenafil-online/
This explores how drivers have varied over time, and how they vary today across the world (Waste Manage Res 2007, 25 (3), 198-207). DCW also co-authored a paper on ‘Using research-based knowledge to underpin waste and resources policy’ (Waste Manage Res 2007, 25 (3), 247-256), which examines the theory and practice of ‘evidence-based policy making’ in the waste and resources field.
8 June, 2006 | Conference, Publication
Professor David C Wilson presented 2 papers at this week’s ISWA Congress in Copenhagen. His keynote paper was on Development Drivers in Waste Management, which explored how the key drivers have varied historically and how they vary today, both around the world and depending on a particular stakeholder’s perspective. Click here to view the paper, or the presentation. He also co-authored a paper with Defra on the role of research to provide the evidence base to underpin new waste and resources policy and legislation. Click here to view the paper or the presentation. ISWA (the International Solid Waste Association) is the international professional body for waste and resources managers.
