he 9th International Conference on Environmental Engineering and Management has been held from 6th to 9th of September 2017 in Bologna, Italy. The main topics focused on environmental sustainability and ways towards a circular economy. At the conference, a wide range of fields where those aspects are of increased importance was represented. The practical research works presented focused on three main topics: environmental biotechnology, water and wastewater cycles and sustainable waste management and exploitation. Biotechnological aspects covered use and effects of different bacteria as well as algae, while the water section presented topics like removal from different pollutants (Cadmium, pharmaceutic compounds) as well as the production of valuable products from wastewater streams.

The sustainable waste management section and exploitation section showed a wide variety of potential targets to be produced from waste streams but energy carriers like biohydrogen, biogas and biobutanol were well represented. The other topics focused more on theoretical approaches to waste management like life cycle analysis or process modelling.

The Waste2Fuels consortium made a strong showing at the conference and, although the conference spanned a wide field of topics, contacts made were very interesting and promising.