More than 1,000 waste leaders meet in London at ISWA 2026

By Elena Vasquez

More than 1,000 international leaders, policymakers and resource-management professionals will meet in London for three days at ISWA World Congress 2026, marking the event’s first return to the British capital in 30 years.

Spread evenly across the three-day programme, the announced participation translates to more than 330 people a day. CIWM hosts the congress in partnership with the International Solid Waste Association, bringing the two organizations together around a broad solid-waste and circular-economy audience spanning government, international institutions and the resource sector.

For practitioners, the event’s scale is notable even though the announcement contains no waste tonnage, plant capacity, commodity price or investment figure. Its importance rests on the people bringing policy into contact with operating teams. The London gathering provides a forum to examine how circular-economy commitments are translated into day-to-day waste and resource management, although the published announcement does not yet attach targets or deadlines to those discussions.

What is on the programme?

The programme places public policy at the centre. Emma Hardy MP, the Minister for Waste Crime & Circular Economy, will deliver a keynote address covering a portfolio that links enforcement with the shift toward circular systems.

The wider lineup includes Sebastian Munden, chair of WRAP; Gareth Roberts, a Member of the London Assembly; and Jeremy Blake from PackUK. Roberts brings the capital’s political perspective into a meeting already focused on national resource strategy, while WRAP and PackUK connect that strategy with the organizations responsible for parts of the UK resource-management agenda.

The event announcement describes the three days as “strategic knowledge sharing and tangible solutions.” That wording sets a practical test for the sessions: delegates need more than broad statements about policy ambition if waste managers are to use the congress to reshape collection, material reuse and resource recovery work.

What does the UK policy focus change?

Nicola Hopley, Deputy Director for Circular Economy Growth Plan Delivery at Defra, and Dr Sally Uren OBE, Executive Director and Chief Acceleration Officer at Forum for the Future, will share policy and sector insights. Their participation makes delivery, rather than policy formulation alone, a central question for the UK audience.

Hopley’s title explicitly assigns her a delivery role within the Circular Economy Growth Plan, while Uren’s position centres acceleration. The announcement does not reveal what either speaker will announce, and it sets out no new funding package, waste target or implementation timetable. Their presence nevertheless signals where the discussion is intended to move: from strategic goals toward execution.

That distinction matters for practitioners. Waste and resource managers ultimately work to specific volumes, processing capacities, procurement timetables and local regulatory requirements. A conference can align those operating constraints more effectively than a general policy discussion when it produces named responsibilities and dated actions. The London meeting’s value will therefore be judged less by attendance alone than by whether the speakers and delegates convert a UK policy focus into work that operating teams can measure.

Where do announcements lead next?

Circular Online will publish live updates throughout the day, making the congress coverage a developing record rather than a single event recap. That matters because the most consequential information could emerge in the keynote and policy sessions, where a target, deadline or delivery commitment would have more operational significance than another general discussion of circularity.

The next milestone is regulatory: whether the ministerial address and the policy sessions turn the Circular Economy Growth Plan into dated implementation actions with identifiable owners. No such deadline is attached in the current announcement. Until the speakers supply one, the congress remains a signal of political attention and institutional coordination. The deciding test will be whether London produces commitments precise enough to change how UK waste and resource managers plan capacity, investment and delivery.