International Waste Conference attracts world's best

INNOVATIVE ways of preventing organic waste being deposited in landfill were drawn together at a major international conference hosted by Murdoch University in May.

The Conference, ORBIT 2003 was one of a series under the auspices of the International Association for Organic Recovery and BIological Treatment.

This is the first conference in the series to be held outside Europe, and was sponsored by two State Government-supported Centres of Excellence at Murdoch University, the Centre for Organic Waste Management (COWM) and the Environmental Technology Centre (ETC).

Murdoch University has made a significant commitment to organic waste management over the past few years, and hosting this international conference will ensure these issues remain foremost on the local agenda,” said Murdoch’s Vice Chancellor, Professor John Yovich.

The conference attracted some 150 delegates, many from outside the State and country.

Also in attendance was the newly reelected Lord Mayor for the City of Perth, the Hon Dr Peter Nattrass, who gave the conference delegates an official welcome to Perth address.

“Organic waste management is a very relevant issue for Western Australia, where the government is committed to ban organic waste from landfill by 2020,” said conference coordinator, Dr Pratap Pullammanappallil.

“Currently about 70 per cent of organic material still ends up in landfill, so we have a lot of work to do in this area.

“Equally important as developing better ways to convert waste into compost, we need to improve our methods of using compost on the land.”

Dr Pullammanappallil said the conference had drawn some of the world’s best organic waste researchers to Perth to discuss these two global concerns.

Keynote addresses include:

• Organic waste recycling in relation to the Kyoto-process and sustainable food production
• Concepts of decentralized waste and wastewater treatment
• Waste management in economically- developing countries
• Organic Recovery and Waste Management during Space Missions
• Sustainable Community Development and Carbon-based horticultural production.