What a year we've had! When the team sat down to look back at our '2022 highlights', we didn't know where to begin... or end.
ISWA made it to many in-person events, from January through to December- starting with EcoWaste in Abu Dhabi and ending with a Circular Economy Conference in our home city of Rotterdam. With a 1000-person World Congress and a return to IFAT Munich and Ecomondo in between, we've covered a lot of ground and reconnected with many of you, our members!
2022 ISWA World Congress, Singapore. The ISWA Board and GS join hosts WMRAS and Grace Fu, Singapore's Minister for Sustainability and Environment, on stage at the Gala Dinner.
With more meeting points than in previous years, the ISWA community saw steady growth in membership. We welcomed 20 Organisational Members and 161 Individual Members. Additionally, ISWA's regional chapters have been active with both physical and hybrid events throughout the year. With ISWA's Latin American Chapter going strong, ISWA is set to celebrate the upcoming launch of chapters in Asia, Africa and the Middle East in 2023.
Global Presence
The year 2022 saw ISWA extend it's presence in the global arena, bringing the topic of waste management to high-level forums and pushing for the sectors further involvement in real-world environmental solutions.
ISWA also hosted a booth at the 27th edition of UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27), and had a delegation present throughout the proceedings. The delegation brought with them ISWA's updated Declaration on Climate Change, endorsed by several National Members towards ISWA's stance on being a proactive leader in the sector, towards positive, global change.
Earlier this year the ISWA board met in Guadalajara in support of the work being done by the Mexican national member, DS Latinoamericana, to promote the use and further development of intermunicipal associations as a tool to improve practices and infrastructure for proper and sustainable solid waste management. At the event, Francisco Galvan, national member representative for Mexico, took the opportunity to thank Rafael Apraiz, national member for Spain, for his role in sharing the European experience in developing intermunicipal associations which was instrumental to the development of the same concept within the Mexican context. The visit aptly illustrated how ISWA’s network facilitates the continuous knowledge exchange that helps establish best practices and the support available for those looking to improve their waste management function.
ISWA’s Women of Waste (WOW!) Task Force contribute to a policy paper on the role of the informal recycling sector in plastic pollution reduction, and recommended policy changes.
ISWA-Wiley Book Series
Dr. Sahadat Hossain and James Law, Chair of ISWA's Working group on Landfills, co-authored the latest release in the ISWA-Wiley Book Series. Released in August 2022.
ISWA and Wiley are looking for contributions to this growing collection of trusted resources for the waste industry. Are you interested in publishing a book in the series?
Event: Circular Economy and the triple planetary crisis
Partnered with our Dutch National Member NVRD and the City of Rotterdam, ISWA hosted a conference on Circular Economy and the triple planetary crisis in our home city, Rotterdam!
Thank you to the speakers who joined us for an insightful panel discussion and keynote sessions on the impact of waste management on climate change and the transition to a circular economy.
Final Event: Marine Litter Task Force
On behalf of ISWA's Marine Litter Task Force, Dr. Costas Velis presented the project's final results at the Conference held in Rotterdam, to commemorate the end of the project. Final findings will be published and shared in early 2023.
Spotlight: EU Projects
RECLAIM
DECOAT
As off October 2022, ISWA joined the EU-funded RECLAIM project. RECLAIM will develop low cost, portable, easy to install and efficient portable MRFs, which will allow for material recovery in remote areas. Additionally, the project will develop environmental games to increase awareness and engagement with citizens, encouraging their involvement in taking action towards improving material recovery from waste.
Effective circularity and recycling requires less mixed materials, but the functional requirements for products does not always realistically allow this. DECOAT is testing technologies that allow the debonding on demand of materials using the Indar primer from Rescoll and the Creasolv process from Frauenhofer that can separate target materials in solution. The work on textiles using the primer was presented at the Centexbel conference on Textiles Circularity to great interest of those present, in particular from flooring manufacturers.
ALMA
MultiCycle
Leaner and greener, that is what the application of advanced light materials promises for future electric vehicles. Halfway through the project, the baseline vehicle design has now been reduced by 23% in weight which is a great achievement in itself. But that is only half the story, as all these innovative materials and concepts also need an innovative end-of-life strategy.
The sustainability of the new eco-design is ensured using the new BEVSIM LCA tool that will also be discussed together with different approaches towards automotive LCA at the cluster event “LCA application for Automotive” in February 2023.
After 4 years of collaborative hard work from November 2018 to April 2022, the MultiCycle project has come to a conclusion. The project primarily focused on delivering an innovative recycling pilot plan and demonstrate that the resulting processes from the physical (selective dissolution based) recycling technology is economically and environmentally sustainable for valorizing currently nonrecyclable materials such as multilayer flexible packaging and thermoplastic based composites.
And finally... we'd like to wish you and your loved ones a happy, safe and restorative end of year. Thank you for your commitment and enthusiasm towards the ISWA mission and community. We appreciate all that you do, and look forward to serving and achieving more in 2023!
