SWIS Activities

ISWA Annual Congress 2016

SWIS Director Dr Hossain with some SWIS members attended in Annual Congress of International Solid Waste Association (ISWA)held in Novi Sad, Serbia in September, 2016.



Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability (SWIS) Team wins National Student Competition

A team of civil engineering graduate students from UTA’s Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability won the Solid Waste Association of North America’s National Solid Waste Design Competition at WASTECON 2016 in August. The team, led by master’s student Umme Zakira, included doctoral students Jobair Bin Alam, Elahe, and Rakib Ahmed and master’s students Nur Basit Zaman and Sangeeta. The students were tasked to solve a “real world” problem faced by solid waste professionals. Dr. Sahadat Hossain was the faculty advisor and Dr. Sonia Samir was the team mentor. The students reached the final round after submitting an entry against many other universities in a preliminary round. They were one of three teams that were invited to present their project in the final round. In that round, they submitted a project report, poster presentation and oral presentation on “Landfill Mining Feasibility – A case study for Solid Waste Authority of Colt County Landfill in Indianapolis”.


The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) is an organization of more than 8,300 public and private sector professionals committed to advancing from solid waste management to resource management through their shared emphasis on education, advocacy and research. SWANA’s National Solid Waste Design Competition (SWDC) is a student team competition to solve a “real world” problem faced by solid waste professionals. The competition aims at providing real world experience to students pursuing an education and/or career in solid waste management. MIT was the 2015 SWDC winner.


ISWA/CCAC Landfill Training Workshop in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, 2016

Two of ISWA’s outstanding experts on landfill, Dr Sahadat Hossain and David Dugger, conducted a workshop on “Technical and Managerial Aspects of New Sanitary Landfill Construction” in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, from 10 to 12 August. The training was part of the Work Plan project conducted by ISWA on behalf of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) and in cooperation with the Dar City Council. The capacity building event covered several topics related to landfill management, from the basics of waste generation and composition to leachate and gas management and also provided an outlook on the financials of operation. The audience consisted of representatives from the three municipalities and the City Council, academia and local non-profit organisations. As the next action, ISWA will organise a second workshop on organic waste management strategy in September. The Climate and Clean Air Coalition is a voluntary partnership of governments, civil society and the private sector with a clear mandate to reduce short lived climate pollutant emissions and thus catalyse prompt actions to mitigate climate change. ISWA is a Lead Partner and Implementer of the CCAC Municipal Solid Waste Initiative since 2013.



TxSWANA 2016

SWIS Director Dr Hossain with some SWIS members attended TxSWANA 2016 held in Corpus Christi, Texas, USA in April.



2016 ISWA-SWIS Winter School

More than 50 professionals and students from 27 (twenty-seven) different countries came to participate in the 2016 ISWA-SWIS Winter School, held in University of Texas at Arlington and The City of Denton, Texas. This year’s event featured Landfill and Landfill Mining. The two week long winter school included technical sessions on landfill design and operation and field trips to landfill for hands on training.


Registration and Opening

Lecture Session
Landfill Visit

The winter school started with sharing the knowledge throughout the sessions and ended with a panel discussion on “Global Waste Management Perspective” from local, national and global perspective. Kata Tizsa, Technical Manager of ISWA; Vance Kemler, General Manager, Solid Waste Operations of the City of Denton; Brenda Haney, Director of Solid Waste of the City of Irving Landfill; David Biderman, CEO of SWANA; and Tom Farkiewicz, lead of Biogas at EPA presented in the panel. Participants were presented with their course completion certificate in the evening gala dinner by SWIS director MD Sahadat Hossain, Ph.D., P.E. The gala dinner was followed by a cultural show performed by the participants and a pledge to make a sustainable world where Waste Management will be all about Resource Management.


UTA Campus Tour
Project Presentation by Groups
Gala Night

ISWA Annual Congress 2015

SWIS Director Dr Hossain with some SWIS members attended ISWA Annual Congress 2015 held in Antwerp, Belgium in September.



TxSWANA 2015

SWIS Director Dr Hossain with some SWIS members attended TxSWANA 2015 held in El Paso, Texas, USA in April.