Al Jazeera English News today ran a feature on the Zabbaleen, the informal waste recyclers in Cairo. After the video clip, Professor David C Wilson was interviewed live by videolink between the Doha and London studios, to discuss waste management in developing countries more generally.  He highlighted the financial benefits that informal recyclers bring to a city, and argued for co-operative solutions - the city recognises the recyclers and works with them, to provide the recyclers with dignity, access to the waste and more hygienic working conditions,; and in turn benefits from more efficient recycling and thus less waste that the city needs to collect and dispose of. 

Professor David C Wilson is guest editor of a special issue of the international journal Waste Management & Research on Waste Prevention, published in March 2010. The special issue features eight papers, including four derived from a major synthesis review of the available evidence on household waste prevention, carried out by Defra’s Waste and Resources Evidence Programme (WREP). Professor Wilson managed the review on behalf of WREP and is a co-author of each of the WMR papers.