Prof David C Wilson is the scientific co-ordinator for the ISWA Task Force which has been tasked to report to the 2012 World Congress in Florence on a number of major challenges posed to the long-term sustainability of waste management by increasing globalisation. He is also co-leading, with his Imperial College colleague Dr Costas Velis, the Task Force’s work on the informal recycling sector in developing countries, which is one of his long-standing research interests. This part of the work kicked-off with an international workshop in Buenos Aires, held alongside the ISWA Beacon Conference on Waste Prevention and Recycling, on 21-23 June, 2011.

Professor David C Wilson gave the keynote presentation to open the Intersessional Conference on Building Partnerships for Moving towards Zero Waste, held in Tokyo, Japan from 16 to 18 February 2011. His subject was ‘Acting Alone to Partnerships - Strategic Approach for Sustainable Municipal Waste Management’, in which he drew in particular on his recent work for UN-Habitat. The conference contributed to deliberation on the theme of Waste Management at the 19th session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) in May 2011, which in turn will feed into the Rio+20 Earth Summit in 2012. DCW's presentation is now available.