MatER Meeting 2017

3^rd MatER Meeting “Innovation & Trends in Waste Management”

On May 22nd – 23rd the 3rd MatER Meeting took place al the P1acenza Campus of the Pohtecnieo di Milano over “Innovation & Trends in Waste Management”.

This biannual conference arises from the fundamental goal of MatER that is prov1ding a thorough, objective representat1on of technologies and polic1es for material and energy recovery from waste, covering the regulatory. strategic and technical-scientific aspects of sustainable waste management. The event has been organized with the scientific support of DICA (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) and Energy Department of the Politecnico di Milano.

For the first time, the collection of the works has been managed entirely through a call for abstracts and their evaluation has been undertaken by a scientific
committee according to their quality, innovation and relevance of the subject, together with the need to preserve a balance of top1cs within the sessions.

The detailed program, together with the short abstract descriptions, can still be consulted at the dedicated page of the event at this link.

Some works have been illustrated in the 4 oral sessions and the rest have been presented during the poster sessions, distributed among the 2 days.

The focus of the 4 oral sessions have been:

During the afternoon of May 22nd, we introduced a special panel session concerning the economic regulation of waste management, which is becoming a relevant topic, especially in Italy. After an overview concerning the regulation of waste management tarifs, a round table with institutional guests of the AGCM (Italian Competition Autority), the AEEGSI (Italian Regulatory Authority for Electricity Gas and Water), UTILITALIA, ATERSIR Emilia Romagna, HERAMBIENTE and CONAI have been set up.

At the round table, we had the pleasure and the honor to host the Italian Minister of Environment, Gian Luca Galletti, who gave the closing speech of the economic session. The conference offered a broad overview of the waste management situation in Italy with the possibility to compare it as well with some other countries. The speakers outlined the main technological, environmental and economical challenges that are going to be faced to improve the sustainability of the waste management system and some proposal on how to tackle them.

The first day ended up with the GALA dinner at the premises of the prestigious “Anticamera del Trono” of Palazzo Farnese in Piacenza, preceded by a guided tour of the Guercino Exhibition and of Palazzo Farnese’s main galleries.

May 23rd,2017

● Session 3: Processes and technologies for Energy Recovery (1)

    Chair: Federico Viganò, Dip. di Energia – Politecnico di Milano

● Session 4: Processes and technologies for Energy Recovery (2)

    Chair: Mario Grosso, DICA – Politecnico di Milano

□ POSTER session

Finally, another novelty of the 3rd edition has been the introduction of the technical visit of a waste treatment facility, hosted this year on May 24th at the WtE plant of Piacenza IREN Ambiente.

Here are in summary some of the #MatER17’s numbers:

• 130 participants over 8 nations coming from different professional realities (universities, industries, public administrations, etc.)
• 24 speeches over 2 days
• 13 poster exposed
• 4 international Keynote lectures
• 1 round table with institutional guests

Hence, the Meeting has been an occasion of discussion and knowledge sharing, on an international level, of projects and activities over the waste management world. Once again, the event has been confirmed to be a fruitful appointment in the sector of the recovery of material and energy from refuse, according to the mission of the MatER Study Center.

We truly want to thank the sponsors of the event:

We remind you that it is possible to find the detailed program and the description of the presented works on the #MatER2017 dedicated website.
If you need more information, please don’t hesitate to contact the organizing committee at  mater@polimi.it