On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the first EU 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 contested it.

Particular attention will be given to tensions between:

1. EU harmonisation and territorial innovation; and
2. power dynamics between public, private, and civil society actors.

Contributions may cover the full range of geographical area (local, regional, national, as well as overseas and extra-European contexts), waste streams (not only municipal and packaging waste, but also waste from electric and electronic equipment, textiles, construction and demolition, healthcare, etc.), policy instruments (Extended Producer Responsability, Deposit-Refund System, Pay-As-You-Throw) and infrastructure (e. g., MBS, RDF/SRF, chemical recycling, incineration, landfilling).

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.