RWM 2026: What’s shaping the waste industry?

For businesses working in waste management, few events offer the same opportunity to connect with the people, businesses and ideas shaping the industry as the Resource & Waste Management Expo.

For SunEnviro CEO, Mat Stewart, who’s been attending RWM for over 20 years, the main draw is surprisingly simple: the people.

“It’s just a really good networking event,” he says. “I’ll catch up with people I’ve dealt with over the years, businesses I’ve dealt with, and see what’s new in the industry.”

Taking place in Birmingham on September 16 and 17 this year, the event has changed considerably over the years. RWM has evolved from a primarily waste-focused event into a broader showcase for the environmental sector, encompassing water, energy and the latest innovations in resource management.

For Mat, that makes it a useful opportunity to catch up with existing contacts, meet customers and suppliers, and get a sense of what’s happening across the sector.

And this year, those conversations are likely to cover some of the biggest challenges facing the waste industry.

The UK’s waste capacity gap

One of the issues Mat expects to be discussed at RWM 2026 is the lack of capacity available to deal with residual waste in the UK.

While the industry has become increasingly effective at recovering materials such as metals, wood and cardboard, there is still a significant amount of residual waste left over after recycling.

“The biggest issue is the capacity gap,” says Mat. “There’s just not enough capacity in the UK to deal with the waste we produce after recycling.”

With energy-from-waste capacity still limited in some areas, some residual waste continues to be exported to European facilities for energy recovery. 

That’s far from an ideal long-term solution. Transporting waste from the UK to continental Europe adds paperwork, cost and environmental impacts, even when the alternative is landfill.

There are, however, positive signs that more residual waste could be managed domestically in the future.

New energy-from-waste capacity is coming online across the East of England, with projects including Rivenhall in Essex, Medworth in Cambridgeshire and the planned second phase of Tilbury Green Power in Essex.

AI and the future of waste recovery

While policy and infrastructure will inevitably be part of the conversation at RWM, Mat says he will also be looking at something much more forward-looking: AI technology.

Specifically, AI-powered optical waste sorting.

SunEnviro already uses a combination of technologies to separate materials, including screening systems, magnets and air classifiers. Now, advances in AI are opening up new ways to improve the quality and efficiency of material recovery.

The concept is relatively straightforward.

Material travels along a high-speed conveyor while AI-powered cameras identify what is moving along the belt. When the system identifies a particular material, a precisely timed jet of air can remove it from the main stream and send it into the appropriate container.

The potential impact is significant.

Modern AI systems can now distinguish between different grades of wood, including cleaner untreated wood and painted or treated materials. That matters because different grades have very different values and disposal costs.

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For a business like SunEnviro, that’s what makes AI technology particularly interesting. Better sorting can mean cleaner recovered materials, greater efficiency and the potential for higher-quality recycled products, such as aggregates and concrete. 

At RWM, Mat says he’s looking forward to catching up with several companies working across AI-powered sorting, waste analytics and automation, including Recycleye, TOMRA and Greyparrot.

Digital waste tracking

AI isn’t the only technology on the CEO’s radar at RWM 2026.

Digital waste tracking is also likely to be a major talking point, particularly with mandatory digital reporting for permitted and licensed waste-receiving sites in England and Wales coming into effect on 1 October 2026.

The principle behind digital waste tracking is relatively straightforward: create a digital record of waste as it moves through the system, making it easier to establish where waste came from and where it ultimately went.

The reality is considerably more complicated.

Waste doesn’t necessarily move from one site directly to its final destination.

A single load can be separated into various material streams, with metals, wood, hardcore, cardboard and residual waste each going in different directions and potentially remaining at different facilities for different periods of time.

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That creates a significant challenge for an industry being asked to provide greater traceability.

Mat expects plenty of discussion at RWM about how businesses will put the requirements into practice and how the technology will need to work across the entire waste chain.

Why RWM continues to matter

Over the years, RWM has broadened its audience considerably, bringing together local authorities, private businesses, major waste companies and organisations working across the wider environmental sector.

This evolution reflects the increasingly interconnected challenges facing the industry.

For Mat, that evolution is part of what keeps the event relevant.

“It’s a good show for the industry,” he says. “It has grown and developed as the industries changed.”

For SunEnviro, that means RWM isn’t necessarily about finding one revolutionary piece of equipment or attending every session on the programme.

It’s about getting together with the people who understand the industry, finding out what’s changing and seeing where new ideas could improve the way waste is managed.

From the UK’s capacity gap to AI-powered sorting and digital waste tracking, there’s certainly plenty to talk about this year.

And, as Mat heads to Birmingham once again, the most valuable conversations may well be the ones happening between the stands.

RWM 2026 will bring together the people, ideas and technologies shaping the future of waste management. At SunSkips, we’re focused on turning that progress into action by maximising recycling, diverting waste from landfill and investing in more sustainable waste management solutions.