The project gathered data on current practices, as well as options being considered and any obstacles to moving from conventional fuels.  This was broad brush gathering of data, with the intention to delve into more detail on those that were developing alternatives in a variety of fuel options.

The working group aimed to cover all the options: hydrogen; electric; hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO); hybrid; biofuel and compressed natural/liquid gas (CNG, CLG).

Table 1: Summary of key points for each fuel type

The study identified a number of areas where further work may be of use to municipalities seeking to adopt alternative fuel vehicles:

• End of life vehicle management – what happens to the vehicles at the end of their frontline service: resale / reuse, decommissioning, retrofit, recycling of components
• Life cycle analysis – the full environmental impacts associated with the vehicle manufacture, supporting infrastructure, fuel / power generation, vehicle use and end of life
• Supply chain capacity – an assessment of the capacity of the vehicle supply market to meet potential demand, particularly taking into account lead times.

In summary, the report gives an insight into the experiences of municipalities operating alternative fuel vehicles for waste collection. The findings may be of interest to others seeking to adopt such fuels.

Note: the information in this report and the findings of this study were correct at the time of undertaking (September 2021 to March 2022); however, this is a rapidly developing area, that is subject to change.

From 21st to 23rd September 2022, the 38th edition of the ISWA World Congress took place at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre in Singapore.

Hosted by ISWA National Member Waste Management & Recycling Association Singapore, this Congress was the first fully phsyical Congress in 3 years. To say it was much anticipated is an understatement.

A truly global community

With over 1150 visitors representing organisations in 51 different countries, the 38th edition of the ISWA World Congress was a wonderfully international experience.

Delegations from all corners of the world came together in Singapore, celebrating an incredible wealth of collective knowledge, expertise in diverse areas within the waste sector and of course, a shared love of networking and strengthening their ISWA community.

Strengthened partnerships and technical releases

ISWA President Carlos Silva Filho signed a Memorandum of Understanding with both organisations, signalling ISWA’s continued commitment to working with excellent partners towards better waste management across the globe.

Passing the baton: 2023 ISWA World Congress hosted by Oman

ISWA’s National Member in Oman, be’ah, accepted the ISWA Congress flag from this year’s amazing hosts, as an official handover at the Closing Ceremony of #ISWA2022.

be’ah will welcome the ISWA community to Muscat, Oman for the 39th edition of the ISWA World Congress, from 30 October to 1 November 2023. 

ISWA is delighted to welcome Naue as our latest Gold Member.  

Naue GmbH & Co. KG is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of geosynthetics. They have decades of experience in developing and producing high-quality solutions to geotechnical engineering challenges. Naue is committed to the development, production and application of geosynthetics. An engineering office and installation services make Naue a full-service provider. Headquartered in Germany, Naue has worldwide subsidiaries and offices.  

Naue products include geosynthetic clay liners, geogrids, geomembranes, geotextiles, composites, drainage mats and others.  Application of products has been successful over the years worldwide in the field of civil & environmental engineering (e.g. construction of sanitary landfills, closure of dumpsites, ground water protection, street construction, etc.), erosion control, hydraulic engineering, mining, tunnel construction and railway construction.  

Naue believes in the sustainability of geotechnical solutions for the construction industry due to their durability, carbon savings, improved energy balance and more. In order to achieve even more sustainable product development, Naue is especially focus on innovation. Their new products lines GreenLine and EcoLine are proof of their dedication towards sustainability

Waste Management & Research, The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy, has achieved an Impact Factor of 4.432 for 2021, a 25% increase compared to 2020. This is according to the recently released 2021 Journal Citation Reports of Clarivate on 30 June 2022.  The Impact Factor indicates the frequency on citations of articles published in the journal.

This increase is a testament of the continuous commitment and exceptional expertise of the Editorial Group, the Editorial Board and the International Advisory Board of the Waste Management & Research. This is associated with the increasing quality of articles contributed by top caliber authors across the globe.

Over the last 5 years, the Waste Management & Research Journal has shown an outstanding performance on its Impact Factor with a total of 172% increase from 2017 to 2021.

Waste Management & Research is the official journal of the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) headquartered in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in partnership with SAGE Publications Ltd. based in London, UK. For those who would like to take part and contribute outstanding scientific papers to the journal, please check this link: ScholarOne Manuscripts (manuscriptcentral.com).

As South Africa commemorates Women’s Month in August, the Institute of Waste Management South Africa (IWMSA)  – National Member of ISWA for South Africa – hosted a webinar on Friday 12 August to celebrate women in the waste management sector. Opened by Mpendulo Ginindza, the president of IWMSA, and hosted by Patricia Schröder, IWMSA Vice President, who shared her own story of “confidence and grit” setting up a women-owned waste business; speakers included female engineers Jabulile Msiza, Pr Eng Director of Waste Engineering Jones & Wagener,

Rajas Pillay Director of Human Resources Interwaste and Belinda Putterill Founder of Use-It! sharing their experiences and aspirations.  ISWA Women of Waste Task Force Coordinator Georgina Nitzsche teamed with Ieva Rucevska of Grid-Arendal and WOW! advisory network member, for a tandem talk entitled: Women & the Plastic Pollution Problem – from peon to partner, promoting their upcoming policy paper on Plastic Pollution and the Informal Recyling Sector.

The speakers were both stimulating and informative and the event was highly inspirational with more women joining online from around South African and as far away as Japan! You can watch, learn and enjoy the two-hour recorded webinar here.

After two years of postponements, the ISWA-SWIS Winter School made it’s full fledged comeback – in the summer! Participants were welcomed and hosted for two weeks of site visits, lectures, workshops and more. Each edition of the Winter school has glowing recommendations, and this year is no different.

Here are three participants sharing their stories and experiences with us!

Maria Jäppinen – Finland

Interested in having your own experience of learning, fun and Texan hospitality? Apply now to join the 2023 ISWA-SWIS Winter School!

What an incredible two weeks we had at the SWIS-ISWA Winter School (summer edition)! What made those two weeks such a fantastic experience was not only the vital knowledge we gained but the people with whom we interacted. People who run the course, like Dr Sahadat Hossain, Brenda Haney and James Law, and many more. People (the SWIS PhD candidates) who took care that all went smoothly for participants, even picking people up late at night from the airport or picking middle of the night medicine if needed. Wow, genuine Southern hospitality, if I may say! But what makes it even more remarkable is the people who come from around the world for those two weeks. Passionate, intelligent and brilliant people around whom you feel again energized to go back to your country and start doing your work differently. 

The more I interact with people from around the world, the more I learn that we face similar issues regarding waste management. Of course, different financial resources and technologies bring completely different nuances to waste management, but still, similar problems remain at the core; how can people participate in waste management, what does waste management mean to people and what should be done to waste that it does not disturb people or living beings. To quote Dr Hossain, “waste management is people management”

Keeping people in mind when we do our work is an important reminder because so often, we can be distracted by technologies, innovations, fame and money that we forget that end of the day it is all about people.  

Writer: Maria Jäppinen, Waste Management Developer in the city of Lahti in Finland. 

Each day, we also had interactive group discussions, which allowed  us  to  apply  what we had learned to an actual project. My teammates and group leader, Sabrina, are excellent people from worldwide. I love the atmosphere while working with  them. We shared knowledge, presented, and  came  up with solutions to solve the problems in waste management in Bangkok, the  city  I  came from.

Apart from studying, getting to know more about Texas was also essential. So, every day after the class, we did a lot of activities, including a baseball game, exploring the neighborhood, and shopping. Thanks to Summer, we were granted extra time for all this fun!

Lastly, we did a presentation for our group project when the program was about  to come to an end. Thanks to our superb teamwork, we finally won the best project award! On our last day, we had a gala dinner to say goodbye to these precious past two weeks in which everyone came in their national custom. The  performances  of  all the team were masterpieces. The following day, we parted with smiles, knowing that as long as we were connected, the world was never too big for us. Tackling the waste issue is still as complicated as it be, but with the network we have, we can definitely make a change.

The above being said one of the projects that is in preparation is the Emergency Debris Management Project (EDMP) which consists, amongst others, out of the current Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) site and a Temporary Debris Sorting and Recycling facility (TDSR). On Sint Maarten we actually have two “landfills”, the “official” MSW landfill and the smaller “temporary” landfill, which was created from all, or most, of the debris from hurricane Irma (The Irma Debris Site (IDS).

Our current MSW, which has been there from the late 70’s early 80’s, is either passed or very close to its life expectancy.  One island with a very big waste problem however, the waste problem is a problem many of us commonly share in allot of parts of the world.

When I heard that I was selected to go to and attend the ISWA SWIS winter school “Summer Edition” course, I was elated and reserved at the same time, after all I did not have that much experience in this subject. However, after reading more about the course and imagining how the gained knowledge could be applied, I could not wait to get going.

Having arrived in the evening around 10 PM one of the humblest and kind persons assisting with the program picked us up and brought us to the hotel, thank you very Alinda/Olindo! When Monday morning came around and it was back to the school benches (which had been awhile) I noticed the diversity in the participants, young and old, that were there from all parts of the world, from Finland to Brazil and from Thailand to the United Kingdom with the Caribbean and Africa in the mix to.

Learning that waste was not a solved issue and a common problem in many of these “more developed countries” compared to Sint Maarten made the world feel just a little smaller as we all shared a same goal and an interest to learn more about this subject and what approaches could be taken to tackle it.

Blink twice and the course is over as the days flew by.

I went into this course as a “Tabula Rasa”, Latin for blank page, and left with such great added knowledge on the subject. Likewise, the people that were met there, I will never forget and hope to meet again one day perhaps in a waste management related capacity or other.

So much information is shared with you every day it really took some getting used to. At the end of every day, it really took some time to recover.

On day one we were introduced to MD. Sahadat Hossein which felt like a life changing experience. What an amazing individual who is able to transfer his passion for this subject to all present. During his presentations over the entirety of the course he created a paradigm shift pertaining to solid waste management for me and I hope for others as well.

Apart from sitting in the classroom and paying attention to all the amazing presentations by the enthusiastic speakers, the course was a good mix of practical field trips, in class assignments, additional social events organized and free time. Everything was organized outstandingly, and all involved that assisted did amazing jobs.

The course culminated in a group presentation which was a combination of the in-class assignments that were done plus extra. It was two nights of hard work after classes to put everything together for all the groups but in the end, it was well worth it. The presentations given by all groups were incredibly well put together and were of a high calibre.

 The course ended with a gala evening where all groups could present something cultural and there were actually a few surprises of the amazing talent certain individuals had. In closing I would again like to thank MD. Sahadat Hossein for his inspiration and knowledge sharing and all the persons involved with the organization. What an amazing two weeks it was, perhaps I should not have blinked twice.

Best and success to everyone

Martijn R. A. Eerland