“Low environmental footprint management of solid wastes to reduce plastic pollution and to recover materials and energy.”

Presentation title: Decomposition of Biobased Plastics in a Soil Environment and Microplastics Generation: Preliminary Results

Prof. Komilis is an environmental scientist who gained his M.Sc. (1995) and Ph.D. degrees (1999) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA). He is a full professor at the Dept. of Environmental Engineering of the Democritus University of Thrace in Xanthi (Greece) and the head of the Laboratory of Solid and Hazardous Waste Management. He is teaching courses related to Solid Waste Management and Applied Statistics. His research interests focus on all aspects of solid waste management, compost stability indices, organic waste valorization, LCA and lately bioplastics and textile waste. He has co-authored more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed SCI journals and has an h index of 37. He has received scholarships from various institutes over the past 30 years (Fulbright, N.A.T.O., DAAD, Marie Sklodowska-Curie, Erasmus+), belongs to the top 2% of distinguished scientists worldwide since 2020 and is currently co-Editor in Chief of the Waste Management journal (Elsevier).