Carsten Spohn Award

CEWEP’s Carsten Spohn Award recognises young postgraduates and talented students from European universities and young professionals in the European waste management sector, for their excellence and relevant research[1] applicable in practice in the area of waste management, particularly Waste-to-Energy (WtE) – incineration with energy recovery. This includes all topics relevant for WtE, e.g. energy recovery, climate impacts, residues recovery, etc.

The winners of the Award will be offered a two-week traineeship in one of the participating European WtE plants. The winners will be able to list their preferences for a WtE plant from the list of volunteering plants. The final placement will be decided taking into account availability.

The abstracts of the winning works will be published on CEWEP’s website, and the winners will also be invited to join the next CEWEP Congress free of charge.

Award Criteria

The Award criteria for the academic work, inter alia, are:

• Practical use and application;
• Level of innovation;
• Creativity;
• Potential for further development;
• Effective communication;
• Economic or legislative perspectives in the sector.

The Jury of this Award consists of academia members and the volunteering WtE plants.

Conditions

• Applicants have to be EU citizens or be in possession of required documents to travel and work within the EU;
• The Award pays for travel to the traineeship placement and accommodation.

Volunteering WtE Plants

• ARC, Copenhagen, Denmark
• AVR, AVR Rozenburg or Duiven locations, The Netherlands
• GfA, Olching, Germany
• Herambiente plants (WTE Bologna, WTE Ferrara, WTE Forlì, WTE Rimini, WTE Modena), Italy
• IMOG, Harelbeke, Belgium
• Meath WtE Facility, Indaver, Ireland
• TIRME, Mallorca, Spain
• Wien Energie, Vienna, Austria

Application Procedure

The Award applications must include:

• The abstract (max. 160 words);
• The entire research piece;
• Short bio of the author(s);
• Short explanation why this work meets the criteria and its practical relevance.

The applications have to be sent to applications@cewep.eu by 31^st March 2024 titled “Carsten Spohn Award Application”. The winners will be announced in a ceremony in September/October 2024 in Brussels.

Any further inquiries on the Award or the application procedure can be sent to info@cewep.eu.

[1] The work should be undertaken in the framework of Bachelor, Master, PhD research or as a relevant publication.

Carsten Spohn (1969-2022)

Carsten Spohn was Deputy President of CEWEP and Managing Director of CEWEP‘s German member ITAD (Interessengemeinschaft der Thermischen Abfallbehandlungsanlagen in Deutschland). He died unexpectedly on 4^th November 2022 at the age 53.

Carsten had more than 25 years of experience in the waste management sector, and he was one of the most active member representatives in CEWEP for more than 15 years. On the European level he represented CEWEP as a member of the EIPPCB Technical Working Groups for the review of the BREF Waste Incineration and BREF Waste Treatment and was the chair of CEWEP’s Working Group Residues. He was also a member of several other CEWEP’s Working Groups.

On the German level, he was, inter alia, member of the VDI´s (The Association of German Engineers) Working Group 3460 – “Emission control – Thermal treatment of waste” and National expert working group KAS25 – Implementation of Seveso-III-Directive (Major-Accident-Directive) for the waste sector.

The Engineer started his occupational career in 1994 at the chemical industry (German Solvay Group). He got acquainted with the waste management sector in 1995, when he joined a team, which was designing, building and starting operation of the waste management centre “AEZ Asdonkshof” in the Lower Rhine area of Germany. The facility has different treatment plants including a waste incinerator, sorting plant, composting plant, bottom ash treatment plant and a landfill for inert materials. After the start-up phase he became Head of the Waste Management Department of AEZ.

Since 2007 Carsten lead the German WtE association  ITAD as Managing Director and developed it to a well-recognised representation of the sector.

Throughout his career he worked as an international expert for waste management on behalf of e.g. BMU (German Ministry for the Environment), BMWi (German Ministry of Economy), UBA (German Environmental Protection Agency) and GIZ (German organization for international cooperation and development).

Carsten was very passionate and dedicated to the Waste-to-Energy sector, his work and his colleagues. He was extremely knowledgeable, always accessible and ready to contribute his insights. Carsten was also a great charismatic presence in any meeting ready to lighten the mood with a healthy sense of humour. He is greatly missed by his colleagues, the European Waste-to-Energy sector and beyond.

Carsten, father of 3 children, was committed to support young people, hence CEWEP decided to create the Carsten Spohn Award for young talents.