Future of Thermal and Biological Waste Treatment Technology

Watch Demetra Tsiamis (Associate Director of Earth Engineering Center at CCNY) discuss the Future of Waste Treatment Technologies with Prof. Marco Castaldi (Associate Professor at City College of New York), Prof. Nickolas Themelis (Director of Earth Engineering Center, Columbia University) and Dr. Venkata Mohan (Prinicipal Scientist at Indian Institute of Chemical Technology). This panel was organized under the “Future of Waste” theme curated by Prof. Margaret Bates of University of Northampton, as part of the 2016 Global Dialogue on Waste organized by be Waste Wise.Read More

Opportunities for Entrepreneurs in Waste Management

Watch Daniella Russo of Think Beyond Plastic, Gijs Langeveld of Bin Bang, Sophie van den Berg of WASTE Advisers and Srikrishna Balachandran of I Got Garbage (Mindtree) talk about opportunities for entrepreneurs in waste management as part of the 2015 Global Dialogue on WasteRead More

Solid Waste Management During Humanitarian Crisis

Watch Brian McCarthy of RWA Group, Olmo Forni of Disaster Waste Recovery and Ramy Salemdeeb of Zero Waste MENA discuss how to about the situations faced during humanitarian crises and how to manage waste during such crises. This discussion was organized as part of the 2015 Global Dialogue on Waste.Read More

Short-lived climate pollutants: Public Health, Climate Change & Waste

Watch Dr. Nimmi Damodaran and Gary Crawford discuss the impact of short-lived climate pollutants from waste management on climate change and public health.Read More

Waste collection systems in developing countries

Watch Dr. Linda Godfrey, Maria Tsakona and Dr. Sanjay Gupta talk about improving waste collection systems in developing countries.Read More

Compatibility Between Recycling and Waste-to-Energy

This panel addressed the role of waste-to-energy (if any) in the waste management hierarchy of North America and Europe, provided international experience on the degree of compatibility between recycling and waste-to-energy, analyses the arguments for the juxtaposition of waste-to-energy and recycling, and discusses the policies adopted in some communities to build successful sustainable waste management systems, with the general aim of moving away from landfills.Read More

Making the Spittelau Waste-to-Energy Plant Possible

During discussions and debates, environmentally competent people showed that the facts are for waste-to-energy through a thorough analysis. But, the public acceptance was still at stake, so the Mayor asked Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a famous Austrian artist if he could do something about the appearance of the Spittelau plant. Friedensreich Hundertwasser then took an year to discuss and check his spirit and conscience about the request and finally accepted to do it. He then wrote a long letter explaining why he decided to do so. A qualified public opinion poll conducted later showed that almost 50% were in favor of the Spittelau waste-to-energy plant. About 47% or so, had no opinion and only 3% were actually opposing it.Read More

Why are Recycling Rates Higher in Communities with Waste-to-Energy?

The major reason why you see higher recycling rates in areas with waste-to-energy compared to those that don’t is basically the state and local policy environment. To just make the decision to move to waste-to-energy facility there has to be a lot of studies of feasibility, including understanding the waste stream, thinking through what the different streams of waste you have. How can you best maximize those streams? The kind of planning that goes into this type of a facility really engages the whole gamut of the waste management stream. So, those localities, and solid waste districts that have sited or are looking at moving to waste-to-energy as one part of their waste disposal strategy are also engaged in an integrated waste policy initiative.Read More

Plastics and Green House Gas Emissions from Waste-to-Energy

“After doing the material and energy balances for waste-to-energy in the city of Vienna, we found that by providing both district heating and electricity, waste-to-energy in Vienna reduces the equivalent of 1.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions compared to landfilling with recovery of some landfill gas for electricity generation. So, 1.4 tonnes of CO2 can be saved by 1 tonne of municipal residual waste going into the waste-to-energy facility in Vienna.”Read More

Program Barriers to Waste-to-Energy Adoption

“Some U.S. liberal groups like the Center for American Progress are beginning to realize that times have changed, the science has changed, and that we’re contributing to climate change by landfilling so much of our waste, and that waste-to-energy is actually a way of reducing climate change. So, if more environmental groups that provide information and messaging to liberals take a closer look at the science, I think that we can begin to move the conversation in a little more productive way.”Read More

Environmentalists’ Opposition to Waste-to-Energy

A lot of it has to do with U.S. history around science and the birth of environmental science in the 1970’s with Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring and the revelation that chemicals in the environment maybe poisoning us without our knowledge. That caused a political split in our conversation between environmentalists on the political left and the chemical and petroleum industries which moved to the political right. And, we see that alignment existing even to this day.Read More

Correlation Between Recycling Rates and Waste-to-Energy

In the last 15 years, waste-to-energy as the percentage of waste generated has come down. Starting from 19% in 1995 down to about 12% of the waste now. So, we’ve actually gone backwards in terms of waste-to-energy. Recycling has gone up, from about 25% to about 34% from 1995. But that’s not a huge increase either in 15 years! If you add these two rates, the waste that’s converted to energy and waste that’s recovered by recycling hasn’t changed in the last 15 years. We’re still landfilling about 54-55% of waste.Read More

Integrating the Informal Waste Recycling Sector in Latin America

“When designing solutions for inteftrating informal waste recycling, we need an adequate understanding of how the overall system is currently working including both formal and informal elements”. – Jane Olley
This panel explored how solid waste management is different in the Global South, and in particular in Latin America and the Caribbean, and considers the benefits of integrating the informal sector into municipal waste management strategies.Read More

Solving the Global Waste Management Challenge

There are “composters”, bio guys, landfillers, waste to energy guys, anti-waste to energy guys, recyclers/zero-wasters, social mitigators, etc. As solid waste is one of the most complex and heterogeneous entities known to man, it stands to reason that a “one size fits all” solution is likely not practical. However, in some instances, we can see attitudes bordering on animosity when suggesting those with differing technology agendas consider working together. This is why our panelists will discuss various questions which help us understand how the we can work together to solve the global waste management challenge.Read More

Solid Waste Management and Climate Change

A recent World Bank report on waste management and climate change co-authored by our moderator Perinaz Bhada-Tata estimates that current waste management methods, specifically emissions from landfill, account for almost five per cent of total global greenhouse gas emissions and … Read More

Managing Plastic Waste and Mitigating the Garbage Patches

Are we becoming a plastic society?

Plastic seems all pervasive and unavoidable. Since the 1960s our use of plastic has increased dramatically, and subsequently, the portion of our garbage that is made up of plastic has also increased from … Read More

Integrating the Informal Waste Recycling Sector in Latin America

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Entrepreneurship in Solid Waste Management

Priti Ambani (Managing Editor of Ecopreneurist) talked to the Founder of TerraCycle (Tom Szaky) and Co-Founder of Wecyclers (Bilikiss Adebiyi) about Entrepreneurship in solid waste management. Watch the video for tips for start-ups in waste management.

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Compatibility Between Recycling and Waste-to-Energy

Click here to read the full length article based on this panel

Recycling and/or Waste-to-Energy is probably one of the most controversial topics in … Read More

Recycling in North American Cities

The panel addressed recycling in North American cities, and how to improve the collection and processing of recyclables at the municipal level. Additionally, it will provide insights into the opportunities and trends for recycling within waste management in the North … Read More