Current graduate students

Four members of the Waterloo Industrial Ecology Group (WIEG) returned in good cheer from the International Roundtable on Raw Material Criticality (IRTC) Conference 2023, “Raw Materials for a Sustainable Future”, held 15-17 February 2023 in Lille, France. This was the first in-person scholarly conference for SUSM Masters student Jamie Faubert and for SUSM PhD student Ankesh Siddhantakar – and the first since the pandemic for Professors Komal Habib and Steven Young. About 200 academic government and industry participants attended from all over the world to discuss the assessment, development and markets for critical raw materials.

Jamie’s oral presentation titled “Nickel supply: primary metallurgical processing capacity does not satisfy changing demand” was well received, including questions and comments from industry and researchers. As a result, he was invited to submit a version of his paper for consideration in a special issue of the journal Mineral Economics. 

Ankesh’s poster won “best poster award”, which includes paid registration to attend the next IRTC conference in Turin, Italy in 2024. His poster titled “Helium resource sourcing and trade: Critical coproduct, cryogenic complexities” was based on research done under his supervisor Professor Steven Young and with colleagues at the University of Bordeaux and the University of Augsburg. The poster is part of a larger project for Ankesh’s PhD on the sustainability and environmental impacts of helium, an element and raw material that has not been well studied and is critical for modern technology including semiconductor manufacturing and magnetic resonance machines (MRI) used in medical imaging.

A copy of the winning poster is published on the IRTC LinkedIn page.

The first paper presenting Ankesh’s helium research has accepted for publication in a special issue of the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling.

More research projects and people profiles are provided for the Waterloo Industrial Ecology Group (WIEG).

More information on the Sustainability Management programs is available for the SUSM Masters and the SUSM PhD.

Canadians trash about a billion pounds—nearly 500 million kilograms—of fashion and home items made of fabric each year, but a new grading system could help divert most of it from landfills.    

In the first study of its kind to determine the quantity and quality of textile waste in Canada, researchers from the University of Waterloo and Seneca College developed the new method to evaluate an item’s quality from A to F and whether it can be resold, recycled or tossed. In testing this method, they found that more than half of textile waste in Canada could be reused and almost a quarter could be recycled. 

“Fashion consumption is at an unparalleled high,” said Olaf Weber, University Research Chair and professor in the School of Environment, Enterprise and Development at Waterloo. “Consumers buy, use and dispose of new garments, which end up in the landfill, and less than one per cent of the materials are recycled. This new method is an important step to curbing our waste.”   

Canada doesn’t have a standardized process for sorting textiles. The researchers used a broader definition of textile waste by recognizing accessories, shoes and soft toys, in addition to clothing and home textiles. They also used a team of Waterloo and Seneca students and professionals from the fashion industry to sort the materials to ensure consistency in grading and proper evaluation of the item’s condition. A pair of ripped and stained jeans might receive a D grade and be flagged for repair before being donated and resold.

Overall, this new comprehensive assessment delivers more data and insights into waste management and prevention. The study determined that items graded A to D made up more than half of our current waste stream, so could be resold or reused. This finding emphasizes that there are many opportunities to divert textile waste in Canada, yielding massive benefits.  

“Reducing our waste is a crucial step to addressing climate change,” said Weber, co-author of the paper. “Avoiding the textile waste assessed in our study could conserve resources and divert a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions — in just one year the equivalent of driving 310,000 cars, plus supplying energy to 218,000 Canadian homes and filling 35,000 Olympic pools of water.” 

Textile recycling in Canada is still in its infancy and so more investigation into its feasibility in some communities is necessary.  

“The tremendous benefits for the economy and environment make pursuing the method worth the effort,” said Weber.  

The study,  Textile waste in Ontario, Canada: Opportunities for reuse and recycling, appears in the Journal of Resources, Conservation and Recycling.

The PhD Examination Committee met on November 24 to deliberate the outcomes of the fall SEED PhD Qualifying Exam. Of the seven students writing the exam this fall, two PhD students, who started the program in 2020, have been recognised for Outstanding Papers.

For her co-op placement, Sanghamitra Kamath, a 3A undergraduate Environment and Business student, worked at L.H. Gray & Son's marketing department

During the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on 7 December 2018 in Katowice, Poland, Prof Barbara Mikolajczyk of the University of Silesia and University of Waterloo SEED Professor Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, chaired the international law symposium Advancing Law & Governance Contributions to Climate Action under the Paris Agreement.