19th INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON WASTE MANAGEMENT,
RESOURCE RECOVERY AND SUSTAINABLE LANDFILLING / 9-13 OCTOBER 2023

Celebrating 30 years

The Sardinia Symposia were proud to celebrate their 30th Anniversary in 2017. The Symposia were established in 1987 and have rapidly become the reference forum in the field of waste management for the international community.

This milestone birthday was surely worthy of celebration and we could’t think of a better way than in a book looking back over the history of both the conference and Waste Management over the last 30 years. The book - published by CISA - includes a photostory and a selection of milestone papers of the different editions of the conference, and is available for purchase on the publisher wesbite.



"Thirty years! You can't look away for a minute! So few that we hardly even noticed. The wastes are still there and essentially remain the same, with the addition of a few mobile phone scraps. Our enthusiams is the same as always. Our dear frineds and colleagues are still the same, some with a few more gray hairs and some rather less hair. The tree and the sea at Forte Village have remained unchanged. However, thirty years is also a long time. On looking back, you realise that we started in the last millennium! Over the last thirty years the scientific advances made have been intense, the approach to solid waste management has changed radically worlwide, both in industrialised nations and in developing countries. History has witnessed tragic events that continue to be reiterated and to cause pain such as the terrorist attacks and the unsolved geopolitical situations; some countries have experienced an unprecedent major boost to the economy, whilst others an equally marked decline; we have children and grandchildern that were lacking previously.
The Sardinia Symposia have viewed and witnessed many of these historic changes and have even been involved and ontributed towards others.This volume retraces the steps takenb over the years. And so the journey goes on."

Raffaello Cossu, Rainer Stegmann



Our heartfelt thanks goes to all those who devoted their precious time to work on this project and to everyone who accepted to share memories and photos with us. Namely we would like to thank:

Umberto Arena / Werner Bidlingmaier / Giuseppe Bonifazi / William Clarke / Anders Lagerkvist / Yasushi Matsufuji / Toshihiko Matsuto / Francisco de Oliveira / Debra Reinhart / Gerard Rettemberger / Hans van der Sloot / Dongbei Yue / Roberto Raga / Maria Cristina Lavagnolo / Aldo Muntoni / Giovanna Cappai / Osamu Hirata

for their contributions and continuous support. Last, but not least, we would like to thank Elena Cossu, who designed and coordinated the project.
Although she was born only a few years before the first Symposium, she wanted to take this opportunity to revisit this amazing film through the eyes of a child, a young woman and finally a collaborator.