This conference is the merging of two successful events organised by the Wessex Institute, the International Conference on Waste Management and the Environment which started in Cadiz, Spain in 2002; and the International Conference on Environmental and Economic Impact on Sustainable Development which originated in 2012 in Ancona, Italy.

Waste management is one of the key problems of modern society due to the ever-expanding volume and complexity of discarded domestic and industrial waste and its implications on health and the environment. Society is increasingly aware of the need to establish better practices and safer solutions for waste disposal. This creates a need for more research on current disposal methods such as landfills, incineration, chemical and effluent treatment, as well as recycling, clean technologies, waste monitoring, public and corporate awareness and general education.

The desired direction of waste management is towards sustainable strategies that avoid the short term solutions applied in the past. The approach which has emerged as the most promising has been called 4Rs, where reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery are seen as the best actions. More recently these concepts have given rise to the new model of the ‘Circular Economy’, which is based on the reuse of what up to now has been considered waste, reintroducing them into the production cycle. Further steps are required towards the improvement of current technologies, increased collaboration between the public, government and private sectors and increased involvement of all stakeholders.

A focus will also be placed on the impact of economic constraints on the environment, taking into account the social aspects as well as the over-use of natural resources, contamination and toxicity. The conference will address problems of great importance, promoting discussion of more constructive and progressive approaches to ensure sustainability. A major motivation for the meeting is to learn from past failures, to avoid repeating similar mistakes, while attempting to prevent emerging threats to environmental and ecological systems.

All published papers from previous meetings are archived in the Wessex Institute eLibrary (www.witpress.com/elibrary) where they are easily and permanently available in Open Access format to the international community.