ISWA 2012 Congress: the new benchmark for ISWA events

ISWA 2012 World Solid Waste Congress (see web-site) will take place in Florence, Italy, from September 15^th to 19^th.  As long as I am involved in ISWA I have never seen a more detailed, in-time and efficient preparation and it seems that due to that preparation a very successful event is prepared. I thought that an interview with David Newman, ISWA’s Vice- President and key-person of ISWA 2012 organization, will provide interesting insights to all of us about that event. And here it is.

“David, we have heard a lot about ISWA 2012 in Florence and I have to say that there are expectations created both inside and outside ISWA about your conference in middle September 2012. Tell us what’s new about your conference? What is different about it?

Well, we started working on it three years ago, this gives us a lot of time to talk to people and understand what themes are most interesting to everyone, this means we have elaborated a programme widely shared around the world, both within ISWA and outside.

Visiting ISWA 2012 web-site, which actually is a very functional and informative one, my interest was directly grabbed by a phrase. It is written that “The World Solid Waste Congress 2012 will define the effectiveness of the waste management industry for years to come”. Why is that? What are the expectations for the participation of the solid waste industry to your conference? 

We are facing a crucial moment, as waste production booms out of control in developing countries. Florence will be an “alarm bell” calling the industry, politicians and authorities to order to affront this huge challenge. In this the Congress differs from previous years because we expect a very wide participation from developing countries and the participation of UNEP is an indicator of how serious the challenge is.

What is the expected participation from a scientific point of view? Could you give us an idea of abstracts submitted and the highlights of the conference program?

We are overwhelmed by about 650 abstracts, and this has caused us a delay in peer reviewing and deciding on a final programme. Half of these are from academics, a wonderful result.  There will be space for 240 speakers so scientists will play a significant role in the Congress. And of course the ISWA report on Globalisation will be a strong focus point.

 Are there any particular events for non-European participants? Because sometimes ISWA’s conferences in Europe are too much European…

Indeed as I said we expect many non European participants and have a very low registration fee to help them be present. We have a strong focus on Latin America, South East Europe, the Mashreq and Mahgreb countries as well as three sessions dedicated to rapidly developing low income countries. I think this year we will see a good balance between first, second and developing world speakers and attendees.

I suppose that the conference will also have a special role for the Italian waste management industry. I would like you to comment on that, especially under the view of the current crisis which seems to create significant impacts to our industry

We are dedicating some sessions to more domestic issues, like the ongoing Naples situation, waste planning in the host region of Tuscany, waste collection in historic city centers; but of course Italians will be present in many other sessions bringing their incredible innovative experiences in terms of management of services and plants as well coming to learn from the experiences of others. It’s a good mix.

Let’s not forget this is also a time for celebration and in Florence ISWA will be making three awards, for the best scientific publication, for the best communications campaign, and also for the first time to the best newspaper journalist. And a time for fun, to enjoy some Tuscan hospitality and site seeing. Did you know that Florence alone holds 25% of the World UNESCO heritage sites ? And is the second most loved city in the world for American tourists ?

Thanks a lot David - see you all in Florence!

Marine Litter: not just an environmental threat but an economic catastrophe too

Source: Ecopaparazzi

I am sure that everyone knows about the problem of ocean plastics. This is one of the most important global waste management problems. Just think about it for a while. Here are some facts:

• The average concentration is estimated around 46.000 plastic pieces/ sq. mile

• There are cases where plastic waste is 6 times more than the plankton 

• It is estimated that 10% of the global plastic production ends up in the ocean  

• It is considered that there are more than 7.000.000 tons of plastic floating around the world 

The vast majority of the ocean plastics originates from the land activities and not from the sea transport. And a big part of it is a kind of leak from advanced waste management systems, like the USA and  the Japanese one.

Few years ago, during a key-nore lecture in 2009 ISWA's conference in Lisbon, I concluded that the problem of ocean plastics is an indicator of our global inefficiency to manage waste in an environmental sound way even in what we consider advanced waste management systems! And this becomes more and more true, as the time goes by without any actual solution to that problem (for more see the 5gyres website). 

But now, there is evidence that ocean plastics and marine litter are not onluy a serious environmentla threat bot also an environmenttal catastrophe!

A recent study (McIlgorm A., Campbell, H.F., Rule, M.J., 2011, The economic cost and control of marine debris damage in the Asia-Pacific region. Ocean & Coastal Management. 54: 643-651) has now estimated that marine litter in the Asia-Pacific region is likely to cost over US$1.26 billion per year in damage to marine industries.  

The study focused on the economic effects of marine debris in the Asia-Pacific region and calculated the cost of damage to marine industries for the 21 economies in the region. Marine industries (shipping, tourism and fishing) are estimated to be worth 3% of GDP for this region and, based on available statistics from Japan, it is believed that 0.3% of marine sector GDP is lost through debris damage. For example, if floating objects become entangled in ship propellers, or engine cooling systems become blocked, time available for fishing is reduced, while maintenance and repair costs increase. The tourism industry can also suffer if littered beaches deter visitors or development.


Based on these assumptions, the study estimated the cost of damage to marine industries to be US$1.26billion per year. This is very likely to be an underestimate as data on marine debris are lacking. However, it clearly highlights the significance of the issue. Debris is also harmful to wildlife, and can therefore reduce ecosystem services - this is another important indirect cost to consider, but as there is presently no market value for these services, the study did not calculate these costs.


Further calculations suggest that the cost of clearing up plastic waste in this region, whether at sea or on beaches, amounts to $1500 per tonne of waste, on average, although costs of individual clean-ups vary considerably ($100-$20,000 per tonne) depending on the type of waste and method.


The costs of damage and clean-ups need to be weighed up against the costs of prevention, say the researchers, and setting a policy target for achieving an optimal level of waste at sea would be more economically feasible than a zero waste target. 

Community-based voluntary approaches, such as anti-litter campaigns, are also popular, but the study argues that greater efforts are needed to change public behaviour. Market-based instruments are less well used in marine litter prevention, but the study suggests they could play a role in some cases. Possible instruments to reduce overall rates of waste production include deposit-refund schemes, taxes on plastic goods to discourage purchase, and encouragement of recyclable packaging.

Smart waste management: Power to the people!

This post is the second one which is dedicated to address the issue of waste management in global cities and megacities. In the previous one (see waste management in global cities ) I concluded that we need to apply Complexity Theory techniques in order to manage waste management systems in global cities. In this one, I am going to give some practical views on how to do it. 

In a recent lecture I delivered in Brasilia, Brazil, during the XII Conferência das Cidades, at November 29 of 2011, I was presenting different possibilities to utilize modern technologies for a better urban waste management.  The lecture was really successful and after the conference I received several invitations to deliver it in different audiences. 

I closed my lecture saying that “after all, if the combined use of social media, internet, SMSs and mobile phones delivered the collapse of Mubarak and other non-democratic regimes during the Arab spring, I am sure we can use the same tools for a radical improvement of waste management in our cities”. And this is exactly my point regarding complexity management in global cities and megacities.

Few months ago, I was reading an excellent article in Scientific American, with the title “the Social Nexus”, written by Carlo Ratti and Antony Townsend. In this article I discovered several smart applications that are already applied in different parts of the world and their purpose is to improve, monitor and control the urban environment. 

As professor Carlo Ratti put it “ Truly smart—and real—cities are not like an army regiment marching in lock­step to the commander’s orders; they are more like a shifting flock of birds or school of fish, in which individuals respond to subtle social and behavior­al cues from their neighbors about which way to move forward… Rather than focusing on the installation and control of network hardware, city governments, technology companies and their urban-planning advisers can exploit a more ground-up approach to creating even smarter cities in which people become the agents of change. With proper technical-sup­port structures, the populace can tackle problems such as energy use, traffic congestion, health care and education more effectively than centralized dictates. And residents of wired cities can use their distributed intelligence to fashion new community activities, as well as a new kind of citizen activism.”

Then I visited the web-site Trash Track. In this web-site I discovered some impressive visualizations of an experiment that was done just to demonstrate that for waste management there is a huge potential available if we use the modern technologies and the interconnected citizens in an appropriate way. Please visit the web-site and you will be impressed as I was, I am sure about it. And allow me to congratulate proffesor Rati and his team from the Senseable City Lab for this excellent initiative which opens new horizons for waste management. 

So, as you can imagine, this is more or less my main idea: to manage the complexity of waste management systems in global cities and megacities with the power of the already interconnected people. Or in another phrasing, to replace the traditional top-down approaches to planning and infrastructure delivery with a bottom-up approach that is based on crowd-sourcing. 

In urban areas, where a lot of people are using mobile phones, laptops and tablets, where smart phones do release new unimagined possibilities of interaction and rapid information, we can use them in order to have substantial improvements in waste management! But even where smart phones are limited and simple mobile phones are available, the power of SMS is enough to deliver crowd – based monitoring and improvements of waste management.

Especially to the areas of street cleaning, collection, recycling and waste prevention, there can be radical improvements with limited cost! And this is exactly what we need during this period of global financial instability! The power of massive social collaboration is something that can be proven more powerful than any advanced technologies for collection and treatment of waste - and still it is ignored. We  must start thinking in a different way and we have to do it now!

There are just two pre-conditions for that.

A.      To give citizens all the tools to do it (not so difficult and definitely affordable) and, most importantly

B.   To inspire them in order to have a continuous feedback from them, to make them real human sensors of the problems in waste management, to create the right atmosphere and motivate people in order to increase social participation and interest for waste management.

After all, the only way to use the potential of new technologies is to provide a meaningful and interactive citizenship. But this is supposed to be the core purpose of any urban governance, right? 

Let’s try to think that way. I am sure we have a lot to learn and much more to deliver. And I am sure that managing complexity with a network of thousands human sensors will be much more effective than ignoring it, as we usually do today.