Dive Brief:
- The National Waste & Recycling Association’s Board of Trustees has voted to no longer attend WasteExpo annually, instead moving NWRA to an every-other-year format for exhibiting at “major industry trade shows.”
- NWRA will launch its own “association-led event” in alternating years starting in 2026. The new event is meant to be a multi-day program that could include networking events, training, talks and an awards gala. It will be tailored specifically to NWRA members and “industry professionals,” the association said in a news release.
- NWRA cited rising travel, freight and participation costs for the change. It also noted that product innovation cycles are typically longer than a year, and less frequent trade show attendance would allow exhibitors to “highlight significant advancements rather than incremental updates.”
Dive Insight:
NWRA is the latest industry group to change its conference strategy as some associations rethink how they budget for in-person experiences and foster environments for industry discussions and business deals.
In October, the Solid Waste Association of North America announced it would launch a new conference, dubbed Rcon, to replace its longtime Wastecon convention and SOAR technical conference. SWANA leadership noted that change was meant to be a more “effective and productive” strategy for discussing waste issues in a more modern way.
The first WasteExpo (then under a different name) started in 1968 in Chicago, launched by NWRA’s predecessor group, the National Solid Wastes Management Association. WasteExpo is now owned by Informa, which acquired previous show owner Penton in 2016. The conference, considered the U.S. industry’s largest, drew about 14,000 attendees in 2024.
NWRA has collaborated closely with Waste360, WasteExpo’s event host, over the years. Stefanie Valentic, Waste360’s editorial director, said NWRA’s announcement does not affect when Waste Expo will take place, only NWRA’s attendance at the conference.
Michael Hoffman, NWRA’s president and CEO, said in a statement that optimizing the association’s event schedule will “provide more impactful experiences that better support our members’ business goals while continuing to offer valuable opportunities for networking and education.”
NWRA instead envisions launching a multi-day “annual spring event” sometime in May 2026, which would continue to be held in even-numbered years, according to a Feb. 11 letter sent to members. In addition to an awards gala, talks and training, organizers also plan to include the Environmental Research & Education Foundation’s annual charitable auction. That event has typically taken place at WasteExpo each year.
This new spring event would rotate locations, and NWRA expects the inaugural event to take place either in Chicago or Washington, D.C., according to the letter.
Starting in 2027 and continuing in odd-numbered years, NWRA envisions partnering with a trade show group “to host an exhibit-based trade fair and education/general sessions conference,” the member letter said. That trade show group could be Informa, which owns WasteExpo, or “another qualified group.”
NWRA’s announced change, along with other recent trade show updates, “reflects a dynamic, changing, and challenging trade show landscape in the solid waste industry,” David Biderman, president of Biderman Consulting and SWANA’s former CEO, said in an email. Biderman noted that some industry businesses no longer rely on conventions as the main location to do M&A deals, while exhibitors continue to brainstorm ways to save on trade show costs. “I expect this to continue in the years ahead,” he said.
This year’s Waste Expo is May 6-8 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Disclosure: Informa, which owns a controlling stake in Informa TechTarget, the publisher behind Waste Dive, is also the owner of WasteExpo. Informa has no influence over Waste Dive's coverage.
