E-waste Academy for Scientists (EWAS) 2022
Managing valuable and hazardous materials in e-waste: the route to circularity
27th August – 4rd September 2022

schedule

Wednesday August 31th
Bus to Cork - Collection from Kilmurry Lodge Hotel at 8:00 am

Program

For more information, please see the complete programme and our flyer

Experts

Elena D’Angelo

UNITAR - SCYCLE

Elena D’Angelo joined the Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) team in 2016. Since then, she has been mainly involved in the coordination and research activities of EU funded projects dealing with transnational waste crimes, as well as in research activities dealing with environmental crime, mercury waste and circular economy.

She has been involvement in the preparation and development of a number of EC-funded projects related to illicit trafficking and…

management of waste, including e-waste, such as the CWIT project ; the DOTCOM Waste project; the WASTE FORCE project and the STRIKE project. She is now coordinating the activities of the Unwaste project dealing with waste trafficking between Europe and South-East Asia, together with UNODC and UNEP.

Working with the UN since more than 12 years, she has developed an in-depth knowledge of the phenomena related to the illicit transboundary movement and management of waste, including e-waste.

She recently co-authored the SCYCLE publication on Global transboundary movements of e-waste – 2022 Monitor. She is also responsible for the SCYCLE training strategy – developing training activities such as the e-waste academy for managers (EWAM) and for scientists (EWAS) and the Waste Crime Academies. Before joining SCYCLE, Elena worked as project analyst at the UN institute on crime and justice in Geneva and Turin (UNICRI) and as senior researcher at the Research Center on Security and Crime (RISSC).

Corey Dehmey

Executive Director of SERI

As the Executive Director of SERI (Sustainable Electronics Recycling International), a global non-profit organization based in the United States, Corey Dehmey is a champion of building practical solutions toward electronics sustainability, with the goal of protecting the planet and enriching lives around the world.

Having spent over 20 years in the electronics industry, Corey’s diverse background touches nearly the entire electronics lifecycle, including working in IT support, ITAD,

data destruction, reverse logistics, reuse, and recycling.

This wide range of experience gives Corey a broad view of the electronics sustainability challenge, simultaneously considering the varied perspectives of many stakeholders including the electronics industry, businesses, government, manufacturers, and individual consumers.

Otmar Deubzer

Senior Scientific Specialist

Otmar is environmental engineer with a degree (Diploma) from TU Berlin, and a degree in medicine from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. He holds a PhD in environmental engineering from TU Delft in the Netherlands.

From his education as medical doctor and environmental engineer, Otmar has good knowledge and understanding of microbiology, biochemistry, toxicology, environmental chemistry, water treatment and waste management.

Since 2008, Otmar has been affiliated to the United Nations University SCYCLE Programme. As a Senior Advisor, he has been working on WEEE-related topics like standards for collection and treatment of WEEE, e-waste management in the EU and in developing countries, e-waste policy consulting for the European Commission and governments in developing countries. He coordinated and participated in e-waste related projects in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana and Tanzania. Further on, Otmar is involved in research projects focusing on critical raw materials and the recycling of plastics. He represents UNU in the German Committee for the development of standards for circular economy and in the Steering Committee of the Prevent Waste Alliance of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ).

From 2008 to 2012, Otmar held a position as visiting professor at TU Cottbus, where he represented the Chair for Industrial Sustainability lecturing environmental protection, environmental management, material management and biochemistry.

Since 2005 he has been affiliated to the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (Fraunhofer IZM) in Berlin. Main activity fields are consulting for industry on issues related to the EU RoHS Directive and the EU WEEE Directive, the evaluation of exemptions from the RoHS and End-of-life of Vehicles Directive (ELV-Directive) substance restrictions for the European Commission since 2006. 

From 1998 to 1999, and from 2001 to 2005, Otmar was affiliated to TU Berlin focusing his research on environmental, economic and technical effects of substance restrictions in electrical and electronic equipment (due to the EU RoHS Directive).

From 1998 to 2001, Otmar worked as visiting researcher at the University of Tokyo where he started his research on the fate of lead and other metals used in electrical and electronic equipment, and on the environmental, economic and technical impacts of restrictions of use of certain hazardous substances in EEE.

Due to his work at UNU SCYCLE and Fraunhofer IZM, Otmar has contacts to producers of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), recyclers, governments and to the European Commission.

Colin Fitzpatrick

Associate Professor, University of Limerick

Prof Colin Fitzpatrick is Head of Department and an Associate Professor in the Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering at the University of Limerick, Ireland

His research interests cover a range of topics in the area of technology and sustainability including the Circular Economy, WEEE Management, Electronics Repair & Reuse, Electricity Demand Management, Conflict Minerals, Planned Obsolescence, & Environmental Sensing and he has published…

widely in these areas.

His teaching areas include Sustainable Life Cycle Engineering, Electronics & the Environment, and Energy Demand Management.

He has chaired the National Standards Authority of Ireland Technical Committee 22 “Environmental Standardization for Electrical and Electronic Products and Systems” the national mirror committee for European and International Standardisation bodies in this area.

He has been a member of the International Program Committee for Care Innovation in 2014 and in 2018 and for Electronics Goes Green in 2016 and 2020. He has hosted the UNU E-Waste Academy for Scientists in Limerick in 2016 and will again in September 2022.

He was conference Chair for the Product Lifetimes and the Environment (PLATE) virtual conference in 2021.

Chidinma Muoneke

Sustainability Specialist

Chidinma Muoneke is a sustainability specialist and researcher at the University of East London.

Following the completion of her masters in Sustainable Resource Management in UL, she joined the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering as a research assistant on an EPA funded project on the transboundary shipment of used electrical and electronic equipment in roll-on roll-off vehicles from Ireland to West Africa.

Since then, Chidinma has worked as a sustainability specialist in the public utilities sector. She led several initiatives designed to drive business sustainability such as carbon footprint measurement, setting relevant sustainability targets and driving several initiatives to reduce the company’s environmental impact.

Recently, she chose to continue her academic pursuits and is on scholarship at the University of East London where she is currently undertaking a PhD on how small businesses undertake carbon accounting of business emissions in their value chains.

 

Dr Yvonne Ryan-Fogarty

Science Foundation Ireland Pathways Fellow and Associate Professor

Dr Yvonne Ryan-Fogarty is a Science Foundation Ireland Pathways Fellow and Associate Professor in Environmental Science within the Department of Chemical Science. Her research expertise is industrial ecology and material flow analysis, focusing particularly on challenges facing the emergent circular economy. She has a track record and an international reputation for excellence in material flow analysis focusing on high impact waste streams, hazardous components, and critical materials.

She was nominated by the Irish Government to be part of the Open-Ended Scientific Group on effectiveness evaluation of the Minamata Convention on Mercury as she contributed to refining the Mercury Inventory Toolkit in products-to-waste material flows. As part of the EEE2WEEE project, she worked with policy makers and the scrap metal industry to develop a material flow analysis protocol that was inexpensive and non-disruptive to waste management business operations. This methodology is currently used and cited by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to report waste statistics to the EU. She was previously project manager of STRIKE, an EU-funded project on transboundary movements of hazardous waste streams. Her PhD work on industrial ecology led to the development of material flow analysis of over 20 enterprises including engineering, technology and agri-food sectors. She worked extensively in the NGO and voluntary sector, particularly on sustainability in higher education and was lead the development of the International Green-Campus Programme in Ireland. She oversaw higher education’s role in development of environmental sustainability initiatives in Cork University Hospital and has published highly cited research on this topic.

Stefan Salhofer

Univ. Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna

Stefan Salhofer is an Associated Professor and Deputy Head of Institute at BOKU University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Institute of Waste Management and Circularity. Stefan holds a degree in Civil Engineering and Water Management from BOKU University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna and a degree in Environmental Engineering from the Vienna University of Technology and BOKU University. From 1992 to 2002 he was Assistant Professor at the Institute of Waste Management, BOKU University Vienna,

since 2002 as Associated Professor. From 2008 to 2009 he served as Head of Science at KERP Research “Electronics and Environment” Vienna.

His main research topics in waste management cover Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, waste collection schemes, recycling of secondary material, producer responsibility and Life Cycle Assessment. Research projects address both waste management in Europe as well as in Asian, African and Latin American countries.

Adrien Specker

World Resources Forum

Adrien works at the World Resources Forum on projects related to the development of sustainable management of plastic and e-waste, especially in Africa for the German development cooperation (GIZ GmbH) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

During his Bachelor, Adrien studied Environmental Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Lausanne. He went one year in Canada and researched the social impacts…

of mining and fracking. In his Master’s, Adrien studied Environmental Systems and Policy. For his master’s thesis, Adrien studied the plastic waste stream from electrical and electronic waste in South Africa. The research, supervised by EMPA and in collaboration with the University of Johannesburg, was mainly done on-site and Adrien lived in South Africa for almost half a year. During his master’s degree, Adrien also worked as a consultant in the field of plastic and electronic waste.

Michelle Wagner

Associate Programme Officer

Michelle Wagner is a Research Associate at the Sustainable Cycles Programme, co-hosted by United Nations University and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. Michelle graduated Magna Cum Laude as an environmental engineer in the Universidad Católica de Honduras and has a Master’s degree in Material Science applied for Environmental Technologies from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden. Her working experience and research focuses on waste management, circular economy…

resource efficiency and environmental assessment.

She has also contributed and led tasks in various projects focused on mapping and quantifying critical raw materials stocks and flows at national and regional levels across Europe and Latin America. She has expertise developing methodologies, modelling, and reporting on waste statistics (e-waste, batteries, plastics etc.). Additionally, she has co-developed EEE Placed on Market, e-waste generated, and plastic tools and has authored their corresponding manuals with the intent of assisting countries in estimating key indicators. Moreover, Michelle is also author and co-author of various publications that focus on quantifying e-waste amounts, such as the recently published Regional E-waste Monitor Latin America edition and an in-depth review of the WEEE Collection Rates and Targets. She is highly skilled in organizing and conducting institutional capacity-building in the EU and in developing countries through statistical workshops and e-waste academies that strengthen e-waste management, statistics, and policies. She previously worked as Project Manager in the Ministry of Environment in Honduras, where she certified, audited, and granted environmental licenses, evaluated the environmental impact of projects, and promoted environmental policies

Dea Wehrli

Scientist and Entrepreneur

Dea Wehrli works as a scientist at the Swiss Federal Research Institution Empa on e-waste related topics and is also a social and environmental entrepreneur. She is co-founder of the social impact startup E[co]work – a co-working space for informal e-waste dismantlers with a first pilot facility currently being implemented in Ghaziabad, India. Dea holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Sciences from ETH Zurich and has co-founded and managed a zero waste retail store in Zurich. She was working as waste and recycling…

specialist for the World Economic Forum, where she was responsible for the waste and recycling management at their annual meeting in Davos in 2017. Furthermore, she gained experience in topics such as CO2 emissions from waste management and single use plastic waste regulations during her work for UN-IETC, general waste management at the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) and electronic waste management at Sofies in India.

At Empa she is project lead of the e-conseg project in which she develops an assessment methods to evaluate the performance of the recycling of electrical and electronic equipment in regards to circularity and environmental benefits. She is further part of the Sustainable Recycling Industries project, where she focuses on business opportunities for e-waste micro-entrepreneurs and is part of the drafting team for a new ISO standard on secondary materials.  

Beside her extensive work experience in different countries and resource management topics, she has a strong passion for agriculture and forestry. In her free time you find her planting a tree garden, sailing, hiking in the mountains or brewing cider. Overall, her actions – be it for work or her free time – strongly reflect her passion and engagement in bringing forward the transition towards a socially and environmentally safe, fair and healthy resource management.

Impressions

Venue & Access

Limerick, Ireland

University of Limerick, Ireland

27th August – 4rd September 2022

The University of Limerick is located along the River Shannon, 5 km from Limerick city centre. The programme and accommodation are both on the campus.

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