Circular Online brings you live updates from day 3 of the ISWA World Congress 2026 as it returns to London for the first time in 30 years.
Repair and reuse need local infrastructure and coordinated policy
UCL’s Danielle Purkiss says closer working between researchers, businesses and government is essential to making circular economy models work in practice.
Repair, reuse and remanufacturing need local infrastructure and coordinated policy to succeed, rather than a reliance on technological solutions alone, Danielle Purkiss has told the ISWA World Congress.
Speaking during the closing plenary in London, the architect and UCL researcher argued that waste management challenges could not be resolved in isolation from the economic, behavioural and commercial systems that create them.
She called for stronger connections between research, industry and policymakers, with solutions tested against real-world conditions rather than relying solely on models and simulations.
Purkiss highlighted the importance of local businesses and facilities in making circular activities accessible and commercially practical.
“They’re things that actually only work if you have an infrastructure in your local high street, in your local industrial estate,” she said.
Developing these activities could also create jobs and wider social value, she argued, but required coordination between local, national and international decision-makers.
Connecting research with practice
Drawing on work at UCL’s Institute of Making and Plastic Waste Innovation Hub, Purkiss explained how bringing together different disciplines could help identify barriers that individual specialists might miss.
Repair was one example. Extending the life of appliances and electronics involved policy, legal, technical, commercial and behavioural issues, rather than simply making a product easier to fix.
She described research examining what people do when their washing machines break, alongside discussions with businesses and visits to recycling facilities. The aim was to understand what could encourage more repair and support business models based on longer-lasting, repairable products.
Purkiss distinguished between assembling a group of specialists and enabling them to define research questions and develop solutions together. Building that shared understanding had taken years within her own research group.
Testing solutions on the doorstep
Purkiss encouraged organisations to use their own operations as testing grounds for circular approaches.
At UCL, she described work to support the donation and reuse of items from student accommodation at the end of the academic year. Studying the university’s own systems had helped researchers understand how organisational decisions and behaviour affected waste prevention.
She argued that practical experience should complement data, modelling and simulation, helping reveal factors that theoretical assessments might overlook.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning could support this work, but Purkiss cautioned against treating digital tools as the only forms of innovation.
“Technology doesn’t have to be just developing a digital tool. It actually could be about developing a process,” she said.
Effective collaboration also needed time. Purkiss warned that rushing ahead without understanding how different parts of a system interacted could lead to missed opportunities and unintended consequences.
Shared working spaces, feedback mechanisms and a common language between disciplines were important, alongside relationships strong enough to sustain joint work.
“You’ve got to make time to collaborate,” she said.
Welsh repair and reuse network passes 100 hubs
WRAP highlights waste prevention and household savings, but says stronger monitoring is needed to demonstrate the full value of repair and reuse services.
Wales now has around 106 repair and reuse hubs, exceeding its target of 80, WRAP’s Bettina Gilbert has told the ISWA World Congress.
Presenting the Welsh approach to expanding repair and reuse, Gilbert described a network of community-accessible spaces offering services tailored to local needs.
The expansion supports Wales’ ambition to establish a universal culture of repair and reuse by 2050, moving beyond recycling to keep products in use for longer.
“The transition to a circular economy requires more than great recycling,” she said. “We need to slow consumption through activities such as repair and reuse.”
Measuring the benefits
Gilbert highlighted an independent evaluation examining repair café and library-of-things activity supported through Welsh Government funding.
Reported results from the evaluated activities included more than 90 tonnes of waste avoided and almost £500,000 in avoided household spending. Gilbert said saving money was a key motivation for people using the services.
However, gaps in monitoring data prevented the evaluators from completing a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, despite evidence that the services were delivering benefits.
Recommendations included clearer targets, stronger monitoring systems and standardised measures suited to different activities. These could include the number and weight of items handled, repair success rates, borrowing frequency, user satisfaction and volunteer hours.
Connecting policy with delivery
Gilbert explained how WRAP’s repair and reuse routemap brought together research on existing services, skills gaps, consumer behaviour and policies elsewhere, alongside engagement with practitioners and the public.
Its recommendations cover areas including accountability and measurement, public sector leadership, access, collaboration, business participation and skills, with responsibilities identified across different sectors.
She stressed that these actions depended on one another. Repair and reuse hubs needed public awareness to attract users, but also partnerships with local authorities and businesses to secure suitable items and support services.
One challenge was connecting reuse shops at household recycling centres with high street locations that people could access more easily.
Gilbert highlighted Newport Wastesavers as an example of how different activities could support one another financially. Its high street repair and reuse hub is supported by commercial activities and shops at household recycling centres.
She said the organisation had received initial capital funding to establish its high street presence, but did not require long-term government subsidy to sustain its operations. Its services include repair cafés, a library of things and space for other repair organisations.
While Wales had made a strong start, Gilbert said achieving its wider ambition would require sustained coordination and action across sectors.
“Funding remains the challenge,” she said, describing the transition as a continuing journey rather than a completed task.
AI literacy must become core waste-sector skills
Sarahjane Widdowson calls for coordinated green and digital training, with savings from AI reinvested in workforce development.
AI literacy must be embedded in waste and resources training, with productivity gains reinvested in staff development, Sarahjane Widdowson has told the ISWA World Congress.
The Intelisos director described a “dual transition” in which the sector must move from linear disposal to circular resource management while adapting to generative AI and smart automation. She warned that technological change was moving faster than traditional workforce planning had absorbed.
Widdowson argued that these challenges could not be treated as separate agendas. Data analysis, procurement, corporate planning and public communications were among the functions being reshaped by AI, and the same capabilities needed to develop circular economy strategies.
Without connecting environmental training with AI literacy, she warned, governments risked investing in skills for working practices that technology was already changing.
Critical thinking and human oversight
Widdowson called for professional competency frameworks to recognise AI literacy as a skill relevant across disciplines, rather than something confined to technical specialists.
“This doesn’t mean that we need to train every environmental scientist to code,” she said.
“It means teaching them critical thinking, how to interrogate AI datasets, manage algorithmic bias, and provide vital human oversight over automated systems.”
She also urged corporate and institutional leaders to guide responsible deployment. Where AI improved operational efficiency, organisations should deliberately reinvest financial savings in developing the workforce’s ability to undertake more complex circular economy tasks.
The challenge builds on existing skills shortages. Referring to CIWM workforce studies she had helped author, Widdowson said data literacy and systems thinking had been identified as major potential bottlenecks in 2021, while subsequent research highlighted shortages of technical personnel needed to enforce environmental requirements.
From sorting lines to product design
Widdowson highlighted examples of AI applications across the resources value chain, including computer vision to identify recoverable materials in residual streams, automated sorting and faster identification of contamination problems at treatment facilities.
Beyond processing infrastructure, she discussed connected bins and route optimisation as tools for improving collections. She also pointed to generative AI research into new packaging materials, illustrating how its potential extended upstream into product design.
However, her central argument was that technology and workforce capability needed to develop together. The sector could not allow a gap to emerge between what automated systems could do and the skills available to use and oversee them.
Her third recommendation was for policy to reflect this connection. Extended producer responsibility schemes, circular economy plans and national workforce development programmes needed to align digital and environmental goals rather than operate separately.
“The sector that leads on the circular economy must also lead on the intelligence economy,” she said.
Making Regional Waste Systems Work: Financial Sustainability and Practical Transition Lessons from Montenegro and the Western Balkans
Across Montenegro and the Western Balkans, the transition towards more sustainable waste management is shaped not only by environmental targets, but by a central operational question: how to build systems that are financially viable, institutionally workable, and scalable in small-country contexts.
Veselin Šturanović, FORS Montenegro – Foundation for the Development of Northern Montenegro, explained that Montenegro’s small 600,000 population changes the dynamics of every decision they make around waste management.
Through a practical case study, Šturanović explored the challenges and opportunities this demographic created.
He opened his presentation by exploring the link between regionalisation, cost efficiency, and circular economy ambitions in Montenegro’s emerging waste system.
Despite beautiful countrysides, lakes, and mountains, Šturanović explained that Montenegro has a waste problem. On the ground, large amounts of waste are still not managed across the country and are instead being dumped in open landfills.
91.6% of treated municipal waste in Montenegro was landfilled in 2024. The EU’s landfill target is for its member states to send under 10% to landfill by 2035.
Given Montenegro’s ambition to join the European Union by 2028, Šturanović said this statistic demonstrates the need for rapid change.
The solution? It’s building a waste system from the ground up. However, before approving the next major waste investment, Šturanović said his experience showed the importance of answering three questions:
- Who will run and pay for this system in year six?
- What genuinly needs scale?
- What will the citizen actually notice?
Šturanović argued that scale changes everything, emphasising that six small systems does not work together in the same way as one larger, stronger system.
An effective regionalised system improves financial viability and service quality, he explained.
This is a live story and will be updated throughout the day.