Owing to the convenience and price advantages, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles have been widely used in daily life. This leads to a substantial number of waste PET bottles. Because of the lack of corresponding management policies in developing countries, PET bottles have entered the informal collection and recycling sectors in large quantities, causing serious environmental pollution. In China

Copper slag (CS) is a potential supplementary cementitious material (SCM). However, unified reactivity indices of different types of CS do not yet exist. In addition, little is known about the safety of reusing CS as a SCM. Here, we collected 10 CS samples, including 5 air-cooled and 5 water-cooled samples, to establish reactivity indices and assess the safety (i.e., the soundness, radioactivity and

The successful implementation of sustainable resource management strategies depends on the availability of indicators that are capable of reflecting system complexity adequately but can easily be computed and communicated. However, systematic assessment of the scope and limits of simple indicators is often lacking. In the present study two indicators that can readily be derived from a material flow

Given the scarcity of water resources, it is becoming of paramount importance that water utilities develop effective residential conservation programs. However, how residents conserve water, or perceive to do so, is not yet fully understood. This study explores whether public perceptions align with usage outcomes of water conservation at the residential scale. This study was enabled by a survey deployed

The building construction sector consumes significant quantities of resources, generates high levels of waste and creates many negative environmental impacts including carbon emissions. These problems are characteristic of linear value chains. In contrast, a circular economy approach to building construction has the potential to moderate these three problems. One way this can be achieved is to enable

eco-efficient cementitious composites are widely used in buildings and structures which are usually exposed to high temperatures and high pressure because of their high temperature resistance abilities. In order to figure out the effects and mechanisms of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) on improving high temperature resistance of eco-efficient cementitious composites, the effects of fly

Assessing the sustainability of waste management systems (WMSs) is key to reduce the impacts incurred by human activities. The article presents the development of an operational sustainability framework for the assessment of WMSs involving stakeholders and experts from different fields. The operational framework presented achieves comprehensiveness by including multidisciplinary impacts (environmental

Forestry residue is an important lignocellulosic feedstock for bioenergy production. This study estimated the potential forestry residue production (PFRP) in 31 provincial regions in mainland China. The PFRP increased from 220.48 million tons (Mt) in 2007 to 257.44 Mt in 2016. The average annual PFRP between 2014 and 2016 was 254.69 Mt, which comprised 228.01 Mt of wood residue, 22.86 Mt of bamboo

Coastal wetland resources are important factors restricting the sustainable economic development of the Yellow River Delta of China (i.e., Dongying city). The objectives of this study were to develop a method to integrate ecological and socioeconomic networks to make the currently independent research on ecology and social economy more cohesive and measure the sustainable development of wetland resources

The disposal of hazardous waste cathode ray tubes (CRTs) has become a major environmental concern due to obsolescence of old monitors and their high lead content. Utilizing waste CRT glass to substitute river sand to fabricate eco-friendly ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) is an appealing recycling and resource conservation option. The superior mechanical properties of eco-friendly UHPC at static

Technological development has led to increasing quantities of waste electrical and electronic equipment. At the same time, the search for more efficient uses of energy is an urgent current issue. Both problems have relations to LED bulbs. The presence of hazardous and valuable materials in these bulbs makes their recycling essential. However, due to the many different parts that compose an LED bulb

Changing our economic system into a Circular Economy can reduce our dependence on primary materials. Circular Economy requires used products to be collected and supplied through reverse distribution channels. Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) is a problematic and under-collected stream. The aim of the present paper is to understand the preference of consumers for EEE collection services. Focusing

With China's rapid industrialization and urbanization, building industry generates a large amount of construction waste, which is becoming a burgeoning problem for the local governments to ensure a sustainable and effective management of construction waste. There is a general agreement among researchers that construction waste recycling is an important means for curbing the deterioration of the environment

Current plastic packaging waste management practices in Europe, but also in other countries require improvement due to legal and societal requirements. To meet high recycling rates, significant changes among others in post-consumer packaging waste sorting become necessary. This waste stream is dominated by plastic packaging. Inorganic fluorescent tracer materials (oxide crystals doped with ytterbium

Material stocks are the physical basis of production and consumption and shape the dynamics of resource use and socio-economic outcomes. We present an inflow-driven, long-term estimation of material stocks for the United Kingdom, covering 12 major materials from 1800 to 2017. We find the trajectory of the UK's stocks characterized by slow increases during the 19th century, followed by rapid growth

Household waste, as an inevitable result of daily activities, has attracted increasing attention, especially as it affects sustainable development. It is important to study the household waste separation behavior of individuals. Based on the theory of planned behavior, an extended theoretical model is constructed that considers perception of the outcomes in household waste separation to better illustrate

The building industry is responsible for the highest resource use, amount of waste and emissions of all industries. The principles of the Circular Economy (CE) could offer an approach to create a more sustainable built environment. For a transition towards a circular built environment, a comprehensive assessment method is needed to support the development of circular building products. As a step towards

In this study, we investigate the feasibility of using a hybrid renewable energy system with battery storage to power an electricity grid without extra investment in fast-responding, peak-load generation assets. When more renewable energy (RE) sources are integrated into a grid, declining wholesale market prices reduce the incentive to build new thermal capacity – leading to the ‘missing money’ problem;

In a circular economy (CE), materials, components and products should be kept at the highest level of functionality, while phenomena like dilution, mixing and contamination, often referred to as the loss of resources, should be avoided. One method that can assess the performance of systems to concentrate or avoid dilution of resources is Statistical Entropy Analysis (SEA). Up till now, the method has

South Korea has been operating an extended producer responsibility system (EPR) since 2003 to collect, transport, and dispose of e-waste. Until 2019, the EPR system was operated with a total number of 27 electronic products classified into five categories based on weight and volume, but 23 items will be added in 2020 along with a change to five categories based on the function of the products. In this

Erythromycin fermentation residue (EFR) is a byproduct of bio-fermentation process for producing erythromycin, representing both an economic and environmental burden for the pharmaceutical industry. While hydrothermal treatment (HT) can solve the pollution and toxic problems, the impacts of HT on harmless performance and the bioresource properties of the complex EFR matrix remain unclear. In this study

The coupled relationships among water, energy, and emission, i.e., water-energy-emission nexus (WEEN), are found to be spatial-temporally characterized. This research is aimed at evaluating the spatial-temporal characteristics of the WEEN of the selected 227 coal-fired power plants in China from 2012 to 2014 by employing the entropy weighting method. Firstly, the WEEN performances (the sub-indicators

The degree of blending of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) binder is profoundly influencing the performance of asphalt mixtures containing RAP. Hence, it is essential to know the amount of RAP binder mobilized into the mixture to produce more durable asphalt mixtures. However, understanding the factors affecting the degree of blending and quantifying the degree of blending is still an open problem

Urban ecological risk thinking and policies should address larger-scale and consider urban dependence and impacts on distant populations and ecosystems. In urban agglomeration perspective, some researchers examined the spatial heterogeneous distribution of ecological risk at different cities, but ignored the interaction effect between two cities. In this study, a Bayesian and Ecological Network model

Recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) is widely used as a replacement for natural aggregates in road base construction worldwide. Still, there are concerns that the high pH of RCA leachate may cause accelerated corrosion of metallic-coated (aluminum or galvanized) steel culverts placed in the underlying soil. Carbonation from CO2 produced in the soil by organic matter (OM) has been considered as a potential

The food and beverage (F&B) production is the second most energy consuming industry sector, consuming up to 14% (22 PJ) of the Swiss industry's total final energy (TFE) and emitting 14% (0.6 million tonnes) of the industry's total CO2. In the period from 2004 to 2017, the sector's energy consumption has been increasing at a faster rate than production, which implies deterioration of energy efficiency

This paper compares the environmental performance of different municipal waste pre-collection and collection/transport systems, using the life cycle assessment methodology. The scenarios compared consider conventional containerisation systems, underground containerisation and pneumatic collection/transport systems. The results show that pneumatic systems have a greater impact on climate change, acidification

The development of clean energy and high-tech materials is prospering. Cobalt, an indispensable material in this process, has drawn attention worldwide. China has a high demand for cobalt; the uncertainty of raw material supply and increasing domestic demand for cobalt may trigger a severe cobalt crisis in China. Thus, increasing urban mining may be essential for securing cobalt. This study analysed

This study identifies a list of barriers that hinders adoption, implementation and upscaling of sustainable supply chain innovation in the manufacturing industry. It further proposes overcoming strategies that seek to aid management decision to dealing with these barriers systematically. A multi-criteria decision analysis method, the Best-Worst Method (BWM), is adopted to aid in the evaluation and

Total Resource Management (TRM) in industry 3.5 relates to the evaluation and improvement of performance through the use of intelligent tools or methods in enhancing efficiency and effectiveness of operations. This paper illustrates a study of TRM in the rubberwood processing industry to prepare it towards a sustainable transition to industry 4.0. The rubberwood processing industry operates using massive

Mineral construction and demolition wastes (CDW) are generated when buildings and infrastructures are renovated and when they reach their end of life. As one of the largest waste streams, they have a considerable potential for the reduction of waste generation, landfilling, and primary raw material consumption. To make use of this potential, sustainable development strategies of many cities include

Democracy and freedom of information can raise public awareness and encourage environmental protection. Forest carbon sink is an important ecosystem to sequestrate carbon for mitigating climate change which is a supplementary measure in addition to the strategies of energy saving and emission reduction. The role of institutional freedom playing in forest protection and which path to achieve forest

Industrial symbiosis (IS) has attracted the attention of practitioners and researchers since 1972, with its inception in an industrial park in Kalundborg, Denmark. IS involves traditionally separate entities working collaboratively by exchanging wastes and sharing resources to gain competitive advantage. This collaboration among separate entities has a significant impact on the structure of supply

The United States (US) uses landfills to dispose paper cups at a rate of 40 percent. Landfill rates on plastic disposable dinnerware are even higher at around 80 percent. This study examines consumer preferences for single-use disposable dinnerware with the attributes: uses no trees; contains no plastic; made from agricultural crop byproduct cellulose; cellulose from dedicated crops, and/or organically

Livestock production in tropical countries consumes significant amounts of water for cooling and washing facilities and releases large amounts of wastewater to the environment, resulting in water scarcity and pollution. However, improving water-use efficiency (WUE) at the livestock farm level has received little attention in current research. This study measures the WUE of pig farms in Vietnam, a tropical

The water resource networks that provide water for urban consumption consists not only of physical water supply, but also water embodied in imported goods and services i.e. virtual water supply or external water footprint. However, it remains unknown that if relying on external water footprint will increase or decrease the vulnerability of cities’ water resource networks. Here, we evaluate the vulnerability

This study aimed on how demographic and scenario analysis can be used to assess the drivers’ intentions toward green transport in China. The special scale was constructed and the survey data was collected from 1090 car drivers in three cities in China. Binary logistic analysis was applied to evaluate the respondents’ demographic and intentional differences when different policies and price scenarios

Due to climate change and intensive human activities, the frequency and severity of water-related disasters have increased and resulted in socio-economic and environmental damages. Assessment of water-related disaster risk is essential for risk mitigation and management for sustainable development. To investigate these issues, this study examined hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience to disaster

Policies and regulations such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) have been implemented to potentially increase the recycling rate of electronic waste (e-waste), but the cost and environmental impacts of associated collection, transportation, material recovery, material re-processing, and disposal could outweigh the benefits of recycling if the e-waste management system is not effectively designed

In a transition country such as Serbia, where the basic principles of waste management have not been fully achieved yet, the management of biodegradable waste (BW) will undergo significant changes due to the rigorous conditions of the intended EU membership. Implementing the requested changes will also affect the flow of Phosphorus (P), which is non-renewable, essential, and with no substitute. In

Timber can mitigate climate change because it can store carbon for decades. However, the value of timber carbon stocks has been neglected for a long time, which has led to overemphasize the production yields of timber. This approach is detrimental to increasing forest carbon sinks. Therefore, quantifying the economic value of the timber carbon stocks and incorporating it into timber prices have great

The demand for V2O5-WO3/TiO2 catalysts is growing as many countries impose increasingly stricter limits on nitrogen oxide emissions. Unfortunately, after service, the spent V2O5-WO3/TiO2 catalyst is continuously and considerably discarded. The cost of the catalyst accounts for approximately 30–50% of the total investment in the denitration system. Additionally, the spent catalyst contains significant

The ability to make well-informed decisions about protective or adaptive strategies for sea level rise (SLR) is crucial for coastal communities. Reservoirs construction, as an important human activity around the world, has boom with increased economies and electricity demand. To updated its impacts on the SLR, we proposed an integrated model by considering different parameters relating to working volume

Food waste has become an issue of great public concern because of its environmental impacts and strategic significance of food security worldwide. In the context of ecological civilization construction and circular economy development in China food waste recycling faces critical theoretical and practice obstacles in reality. As China's urban population grows and the restaurant industry expands, the

The increasing demand for water in urban areas of developing countries has been given more importance to rainwater harvesting techniques in the last decades. However, there is still a lack of general approaches to show and compare the potential to benefit effectively from direct roof runoff at different locations. Past studies mainly focused on specific design conditions, making it difficult to interpret