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Climate Festival 2026 - Humans and waste: taking action and considering communities

When: —
Venue: Online

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It feels like we generate more waste every year, and fewer ways of tackling its growing environmental impacts on our lives. From wet-wipes / fatbergs, to our ongoing attachment to plastic bags, to the almost ubiquitous waste on our shorelines, waste is everywhere. It affects our enjoyment of open spaces, it multiplies around the very bins that have been put in to collect it, and it requires concerted action from everyone when many seem unaware that it is even an issue. Bringing together researchers from multiple disciplines, we will address some of these thorny issues, discussing how communities interact with waste in public spaces and how action can be taken on this.

Links to A level Geography specifications:

  • AQA: 3.2.3.6 Urban waste and its disposal
  • OCR: Geographical debates Topic 3.3 – Exploring Oceans

Contact name: External Relations Events

Speakers
  • Dr Randa Kachef —

    Dr. Randa L. Kachef is an urban waste and sustainability expert, whose work and research are focused around reducing environmental impacts through infrastructure, product innovation and policy change. Her research spans a variety of topics within waste reduction, particularly litter, material recovery, and sewage. An experienced science communicator with a background in corporate marketing, she is a frequent consultant and commentator on topics where science and policy overlap.

  • Prof Pam Yeow —

    Dr Pamela Yeow joined the Department of Management, School of Business, Economics and Informatics at Birkbeck in September 2016 as Programme Director of the Central Saint Martins-Birkbeck MBA. This MBA is for a new type of business graduate: one who can combine creative thinking and innovation with strategic management skills. In creating a new network of leaders with hybrid skills and approaches, we ready them for a world in which agility, innovation and creativity are central to the development of new industries, products and services. The MBA was shortlisted for innovation in business education by QS-Reimagine Education in 2018.  

    She is also Assistant Dean - External Engagement since September 2020. Prior to joining Birkbeck, Pam was at the University of Kent. 

    Pam's current research is on rethinking ethical consumerism and a pilot project was funded by the Eastern Arc on understanding the differing householder roles in effecting sustainable change. More on this research can be found here. 

  • Professor Anna Wilson —

    Professor Anna Wilson is a Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education at the University of Glasgow. She has a diverse academic background, having previously worked as a physicist, an academic developer, an HCI/social science researcher, and an education academic. Her research and teaching focus on how we learn to approach, understand, and deal with complex knowledge, situations, and challenges.

    Professor Wilson's work is concerned with the ways communities and individuals outside compulsory education learn within, from, and about their changing contexts. She is also the Director of the Centre for Research and Development in Adult and Lifelong Learning at the University of Glasgow.
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    Her research and teaching interests inevitably lead to a need to develop new research methods and methodologies. Currently, she is working with fiction and made-up stories, ways of speaking that allow us to imagine alternative pasts, presents, and futures, and that express important realities.

    Professor Wilson's academic career began as a nuclear structure physicist, completing a PhD in Nuclear Physics at the University of Liverpool in 1996. She later became involved in teaching and learning, leading to her current position as a Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies in Education.

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