SPEAKERS

Dr. Costas Velis
Dr. Costas Velis
School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, UK

Dr Costas Velis is an international expert on circular economy, resources from waste and plastics pollution (https://plasticpollution.leeds.ac.uk/). An academic at the School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds, UK he is a Chartered Waste Manager by CIWM and registered with the Institute of Physics (MInstP). Dr Velis leads the ISWA Marine Litter Task Force, aiming at establishing the clear link between sound waste and recycling practices and the prevention of marine litter. His academic research papers have been honored with many prestigious awards, including those from ICE, CIWM and ISWA. Costas has a wide research portfolio as Principal Investigator and Co-I, and his wider expertise covers topics from modelling of plastic pollution informal sector recycling in the Global South, to mechanical processing of waste.

Costas has a wide research portfolio funded by UKRI, NERC, BBRSC, and many international organizations (The World Bank, GIZ, UN-Habitat, UNESCAP). He recently led efforts to explore the links between public and occupational health from mismanaged waste for the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK; and created a new comparative toolkit for the World Bank for plastic pollution quantification methodologies.

He services as Editor-in-Chief of Waste Management & Research, Associate Editor for Frontiers in Sustainability - Waste Management and via the Editorial Board of Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology. With over 18 years of practical experience in resources recovery, he serves in many international committees and initiatives addressing relevant challenges of global scale, including the prestigious seminal Global Waste Management Outlook released by UNEP.

Dr Velis holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering (Sustainable Systems) from Cranfield University, an MSc in Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Development from Imperial College London, and a BSc in Physics from University of Athens, with major in Environmental Physics.