News from the President

David NewmanDear Friends, Colleagues and ISWA Members

As expected this has been a very busy few weeks. The two days rushing around Washington DC before Easter with ISWA MD Hermann Koller and SWANA CEO David Biderman and his Chairman Michelle Leonard, were tiring but very exciting. We were promoting the World Congress of 2017 which will be held in neighbouring Baltimore and were received warmly by the World Bank, EPA, Waste Management Inc, UNEP and the GEF, the Clinton Climate Intitiative, the Chamber of Commerce, the Commerce Department and at the Capitol by Congressman Ellison, promoter of a Zero Waste Bill. On top of all this we found time to hold a seminar with around 60 people representing companies and public sector. Thanks again to David and Michelle for their warm welcome in beautiful DC.

Straight after Easter I headed to the other side of the world, Kuala Lumpur, were the WMAM hosted a very interesting Beacon Conference on Resource Management and the Circular Economy. Malaysia is a wonderful country and in 2018 will host the ISWA World Congress. We held very good meetings there, with the whole Board present for our quarterly meeting and with some speaking in the conference; we also met with many Malaysian Government officials- I personally sat at dinner with the Minister of Environment for three hours trying to convince him to think about organics recycling as a priority. I think he was glad when I left!

Make sure you got all four future congress dates in your diaries: Serbia, USA, Malaysia and Spain. The Serbian 2016 Congress has a great programme, rich in technical content and superb partnerhsips with international bodies. It will be a fascinating event.

Lastly, I attended the Health Care Waste conference in London on April 14th and had a very good time listening to the challenges these professionals face in handling what are some of our most dangerous waste streams. I am pleased to announce that our Working Group, lead by Anne Woolridge, has signed an agreement to cooperate with the WHO over the next three years to support WHO with professional waste management expertise. Good work!

May is coming up, and another tour de force- the UNEP Environmental Assembly in Nairobi with our Vice President Carlos Silva and the Finnish Association's national conference. There are many other ISWA events you can see in this Newsletter.

I am looking forward to the pleasure of meeting old friends and making new ones in these events. See you soon.

David Newman
President, ISWA

Read more news!

Teilen Sie diesen Beitrag