On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the first European Waste Framework Directive, this colloquium brings together legal scholars, management researchers, and other social sciences to reflect on fifty years of European Waste Laws and Management (EU WL&M). It will examine how the European regulatory framework has evolved, how it has been transposed into Member States, and how local actors have interpreted, adapted, and sometimes contested it.

Particular attention will be given to tensions between EU harmonisation and territorial innovation, the principle of subsidiarity, and power dynamics between public, private, and civil-society actors. Contributions may cover the full range of waste policies and instruments — from EPR and DRS systems to prevention, circular-economy and end-of-waste frameworks, including taxation and regulatory mechanisms on plastics, packaging, WEEE, landfilling, and incineration.

The aim is to assess past trajectories and collectively imagine the next fifty years of waste governance in Europe.

For more details, see the call for papers on the left.