IWWG - International Waste Working Group is a non-profit association that aims to provide a forum to encourage economic and ecological waste management world-wide and to promote scientific advancement in the field
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Task Group Leaders:
Francesco Parrillo, Italy
francesco.parrillo@unicampania.it
Tarek Rashwan, UK
tarek.rashwan@nottingham.ac.uk
Lidia Lombardi, Italy
lidia.lombardi@unicusano.it

Contacts:
Lidia Lombardi, Italy
Department of Engineering
Niccolò Cusano University
Via Don Carlo Gnocchi 3, Rome, 00166, Italy
email: lidia.lombardi@unicusano.it

Francesco Parrillo,
Department of Environmental, Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technologies
University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”
Via A. Vivaldi, 43, 81100, Caserta, Italy
email: francesco.parrillo@unicampania.it

Tarek Rashwan
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham, UK, NG7 2RD
email: tarek.rashwan@nottingham.ac.uk

Background & Scope

In the last decades, the management of solid wastes greatly changed, shifting from oversimplified procedures, such as collection of unsorted wastes and their disposal in landfills, to integrated and sustainable systems, characterized by an adequate balance between waste reduction practices, material recycling techniques, biological and thermal processes for energy recovery, and engineered landfill disposal. A modern and sustainable waste management should be defined and developed with the main aim of minimizing the use of landfills, as it is imposed by the continuously reducing space for locating sanitary landfills worldwide. Moreover, it should minimize the production and release of hazardous pollutants – including emerging contaminants – while maximizing the recovery of materials, but avoiding operations that entail excessive consumption of raw materials and energy without yielding a real overall environmental advantage. Instead, a modern integrated solid waste management system should maximize resource recovery, given that, in a life-cycle approach, energy or fuel/chemicals recovery from waste allows decreasing consumption of fossil fuels and overall emissions from all current conversion systems.

The waste management systems that are operating sustainably worldwide follow all of these criteria and demonstrate that no one process is suitable for all waste streams, and no single waste management practice (i.e. landfilling, recycling, biochemical or thermochemical conversion) can handle the full array of waste types. In particular, they confirm that thermochemical treatment of unsorted residual waste (i.e., the waste left downstream of separate collection that cannot be environmentally and economically conveniently recycled) is an essential component of any sustainable integrated municipal solid waste management system. It can play a number of important roles in an integrated waste management system, since proper handling can:

  • reduce the amount of waste, therefore preserving landfill space;
  • increase the sustainable utilization of energy from the solid waste stream;
  • allow for the recovery of minerals and chemicals from the solid waste stream which can then be reused or recycled;
  • destroy a number of contaminants that may be present in the waste stream;
  • reduce greenhouse gas emissions from anaerobic decomposition of the organic wastes

Aims & Objectives

  • Communicating properly and to a large part of the population about process, technological and environmental aspects of the main thermal treatments able to produce energy from wastes efficiently.
  • Comparing the different processes (combustion, gasification, pyrolysis) and technologies of these treatments, for different plant sizes and for different waste types.
  • Promoting the exchange and the collaboration within the scientific community and with the industry.
  • Acting as platform for facilitating information and proposal exchange.

Members and Membership

The Task Group, led by Francesco Parrillo, Tarek Rashwan, and Lidia Lombardi, includes members from several counties in the world, creating an international forum of researchers.

  • Umberto Arena, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” (IT)
  • Christophe Cord’homme (FR)
  • Lidia Lombardi, University Cusano (IT)
  • Michael Nelles, University of Rostock (DE)
  • Francesco Parrillo, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” (IT)
  • Rainer Stegmann, IWWG (DE)
  • Tarek Rashwan, University of Nottingham (UK)
  • Ilje Pikaar, University of Queensland (AU)
  • Grzegorz Lisak, Nanyang Technological University (SG)
  • Massimiliano Materazzi, University College London (UK)
  • Dezhen Chen, Tongji University (CN)
  • Carmine Boccia, University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” (IT)
  • Marco J. Castaldi, The City College of New York/CUNY (US)
  • Hamad Gohar, University of Padua (IT)

Structure and operation mode

Meetings are held at least once a year either during the Sardinia Symposium or the Venice Symposium. These events serve as the main meeting platforms. Additional meetings are held when needed, eventually online.

Ongoing and future activities

Series of webinar on Thermal Treatments, organized in collaboration with Waste Management, covering recent technological developments in waste combustion and gasification, strategies for improving energy efficiency and emission control, life-cycle and environmental assessment of thermal processes within circular economy frameworks, and the role of thermal treatments in addressing emerging contaminants, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
Devoted event within next Venice 2026 conference.
For all updates, follow our LinkedIN page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/iwwg-thermal-treatments-task-group

Past activities

The Thermal Treatment TG has already promoted several activities and initiatives during more than ten years, as:

  • Focus Session at Venice 2022 9th International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste, Venice (IT), 21-23 November 2022: ROLE OF THERMAL TREATMENT IN CIRCULAR ECONOMY. Moderator: U. Arena (IT) – Panelists: C. Cord’Homme (FR), M. Castaldi (US), L. Lombardi (IT), M. Materazzi (UK), D. Chen (CN).
  • Energy recovery from waste: technologies and experiences, October 2015. Conference organized by Solvay and hosted by Niccolò Cusano University

The next regular meeting of the Thermal Treatment Task Group will take place during the Venice Symposium 2026.

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