Plantation Crop Wastes: Valorization for Economic Sustainability

Cristina Trois, Ph.D., is a Professor of Environmental Engineering and the Director of the Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies at Stellenbosch University, in South Africa. Before that, she was the DSTI/NRF South African Research Chair in Waste and Climate Change (SARCHI) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), former Dean and Head of the School of Engineering. She holds an MScEng (summa cum laude) and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the Department of Geo-Engineering and Environmental Technology of Cagliari University, Italy. Professor Trois is a C1-rated scientist with the National Research Foundation. Her main fields of expertise are environmental and geo-engineering, waste and climate change in sustainable cities, waste and resources management, control, management and treatment of landfill emissions, renewable energy from waste, biomass energy, greenhouse gas control from zero waste in Africa and developing countries and the circular economy. Professor Trois is the editor of Springer’s  Waste as a Resource  book series and co-editor of the book  Waste Management in Developing Countries  (Springer, 2022). She is the author of over 130 publications in high-impact journals and has successfully supervised more than 100 Ph.D. and Master’s students. Professor Trois is the Chair of the joint secretariat for the Southern Africa Region of the UN-IPLA Programme (International Partnership for advancing waste management services of local authorities) and the IWWG (International Waste Working Group) and is a Fellow of the South African Academy of Engineers and Academy of Science.

Ramesh C. Ray, Ph.D.,  is an agriculture and food microbiologist, author, editor and is currently serving as an adjunct professor in industrial biotechnology at Siksha 'O' Anusandhan (SOA), deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, India. He is a former distinguished member of Agricultural Research Service of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi, and Head of the Regional Centre, ICAR–Central Tuber Crops Research Institute at Bhubaneswar, India. Dr. Ray has over 45 years of research experience in agriculture, food, and industrial microbiology. He has published around 250 research and scientific articles including 75 book chapters, edited and co-edited 24 books, and co-authored three books.  Dr. Ray was a visiting professor and scientist at several universities and research institutes in India and abroad and a consultant on sweet potato with the International Potato Center (CIP). He was a guest faculty member in Applied Microbiology at Utkal University, India, from 2000 to 2010. Dr. Ray is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi, and the National Academy of Biological Sciences, Chennai, India.