Since metals are often used in alloyed forms, proper management and efficient recycling of metal scrap is key to sustainable management of those alloying metals as well. Previous studies on the trade of metals and metal containing products focused mainly on the carrying major metals themselves, however, the quantity and type of their embodied alloying elements remain rarely investigated. In this paper

Socio-economic development and new technological advancements have greatly increased the demand for metals, minerals and nutrients. Thus, substantial interest in developing technologies to recover these commodities from seawater, various brines and wastewater streams (industrial and domestic) has emerged. Less explored and innovative membrane processes including membrane crystallization (MCr), forward

The food service industry has seen the advent of online food delivery services (OFDS) due to the development of online retailing and a rise in mobile phone usage. OFDS are growing in popularity around the world and are increasing the use of take-away food packaging and the subsequent environmental implications from its production and disposal. While a large number of studies have considered packaging-related

This study examines the merits of using biochar to delay aging in construction while promoting the economic viability of biofuel production and enhancing the biomass value chain. Biochar residue from pyrolysis of biomass to biofuel was introduced to neat asphalt and rubberized asphalt binders. The study results showed biochar can delay oxidation and UV-induced aging at binder and mixture level as evidenced

The circular economy, which takes inspiration from the ‘waste not’ functioning of the ecosystem to propose more resource efficient production and consumption patterns, has attracted the interest of different stakeholders recently. Yet very little is known about the companies that put circular principles at the heart of doing business and their ecological and social sustainability outcomes. Circular

Electronic waste (e-waste) is one of the fastest growing waste segments in the world. This study investigates the use of supercritical CO2 (scCO2) and aqueous acid as co-solvent for the treatment of e-waste, specifically for the extraction of copper. Printed circuit board (PCB) was selected as the e-waste of study. In order to perform controlled experiments, melt-pressed Cu foil and polycarbonate sheets

The building of new waste treatment plants has not been closely following the Circular Economy (CE) hierarchy, and the incurred cost and social acceptance have been challenging. Integrated regional waste management by waste trading can offer the sharing of resources to achieve a mutually beneficial system in CE transition. This study aims to minimise the environmental footprints, with the consideration

The huge amount of food wasted at the consumer or household level has severe environmental and economic consequences. In the present work, we compared two self-report measures for the assessment of food waste quantities at the household level in Switzerland. Participants (N = 223) were asked to complete an online food waste questionnaire (FWQ), in which they were instructed to report the average amount

Tetra Pak cartons, i.e. multilayer packaging consisting of paper, low density polyethylene (LDPE) and aluminium, are widely used as aseptic packages in the food and beverage industry. Paper can be easily recovered from this type of post-consumer beverage cartons (PCBCs) by the pulp industry. The remaining LDPE/aluminium by-product, however, cannot be easily separated to its constituents so currently

This study examines the merits of esterification of waste cooking oil to reduce its acidic content for use as a rejuvenator for aged asphalt. It further examines how acidic compounds in bitumen increases the moisture susceptibility of bituminous composites made from siliceous stones and bitumen. While some acidic compounds are inherent in bitumen, the recent widespread use of bio-modifiers such as

The COVID-19 pandemic sweeping much of the globe is not anticipated to be short in duration, with contingency plans suggesting that it may last at least eighteen months. In the United States, one of the critical issues in coping with the pandemic has been a lack of essential personal protective equipment (PPE), at the local, state, and national level. As COVID-19 is primarily transferred through respiratory

This study contributes to building a valid hierarchical sustainable solid waste management (SSWM) attribute set with qualitative information, which is a complicated and ambiguous problem with uncertainties. Few studies have provided qualitative information and have addressed the interrelationships and interdependencies among the hierarchical SSWM attributes. SSWM has recently become a difficult problem

Approximately 31% of food is lost or wasted at the retail and consumer levels in the U.S. Among consumers, young adults have been identified as one of the more wasteful segments of the population. In the U.S., many young adults (ages 18–24) attend a post-secondary education institution where they are often provided housing and meals through the college or university. Because of this, university dining

Electric vehicles (EVs) will be an important part of a low-carbon economy. Future EV adoption depends on overcoming multiple barriers, including charging infrastructure, sufficient electricity generation, and the availability of battery raw materials at acceptable costs, including cobalt, copper and nickel – which typically are co-produced. Various EV projections have been made, along with associated

The effect of drinking water sludge ash (DWSA) on the properties of DWSA-cement pastes is investigated in this study using x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive spectrometry, and thermogravimetry techniques. The pozzolanic reactivity of DWSA is confirmed; the filler effect of DWSA can significantly and rapidly accelerate the hydration reaction at an early curing

Recent trends in the raw materials market unveil a growing dependence of the European ceramic tile industry on imports from sources outside the European Union. This tendency reflects significant changes in the typologies of ceramic products, which in turn result in a modified batch design and different raw materials. Such an evolution implies an increasing stress on the supply chain, which role is

The change of consumers' shopping mode has caused massive express packaging waste, which results in resource waste and environmental pollution. Therefore, the recycling of express packaging has become an important environmental protection requirements as well as social issue and it requires an urgent solution. At the same time, the impact of anthropomorphism on consumer behavior is increasingly prominent

At present, there are serious problems of excessive energy consumption and carbon emissions in Chinese manufacturing industry. To solve these problems, it is of great importance to measure and improve total factor energy efficiency reasonably. At the same time, Chinese manufacturing industry differs significantly in various sub-sectors and regions, which means the prevalence of dual heterogeneity.

The use of iron-based disposable-chemical-warmer (DCW) produces huge amount of solid wastes every year (e.g. at least 2 million tons of solid waste every year for China and Japan only), which are directly abandoned as trash now. In this work, spent DCW was recycled as adsorbent for As(V) removal from water. For the first time, we elucidated that the spent DCW was a magnetic nanocomposite consisted

A non-trivial challenge along egg supply chains is inefficient use of nitrogen, which may have a combination of negative economic, human/animal health, and environmental implications. A variety of technologies and management strategies have been proposed to improve nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) and reduce emissions at key supply chain stages. This study considered seven scenarios representing NUE strategies:

The emergence of the obligation to preserve the environment has affected the consumption model; therefore, green products and sustainable consumption have become an international concern. All over the world, green consumption is being considered, as consumers are essential contributors to the achievement of sustainable development goals, owing to their ability to choose between ungreen and eco-friendly

Increasing industrial water use efficiency is key to achieving sustainable industrial development. This study employed bootstrap-data envelopment analysis to calculate the industrial water use efficiency in 31 Chinese provinces from 2005 to 2015. The regional differences and spatial spillover effect of the industrial water efficiency of the 31 provinces were analyzed. Moreover, a spatial Tobit model

As one of the fastest-growing economies, China faces challenges of improving water utilization and treatment. This study performed the slack-based measure data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) which considered undesirable outputs to evaluate water utilization and treatment efficiency of the 30 provinces in the mainland of China and applied the Tapio decoupling elasticity model to examine the relationship

With the increase in waste streams, industrial sorting has become a major issue. The main challenge is to minimise sorting errors to avoid serious recycling problems and significant quality degradation of the final recycled product. Making use of near infrared (NIR) technology, some industrialists have already designed sorting machines able to discriminate between several types of plastics with good

In this paper, an interval two-stage fuzzy credibility constraint programming (ITSFCCP) method is proposed to deal with multiple uncertainties that can be expressed as fuzzy sets, discrete intervals and probability distributions, which can be used for effectively reflect natural and social complexities of relevant decision-making processes. Lincang city of Yunnan province, which is located in the southwest

Despite widespread recognition of the need to transition toward more sustainable production and consumption and numerous initiatives to that end, global resource extraction and corresponding socio-ecological degradation continue to grow. Understanding the causes of this persistent failure is a necessary step towards more effective action. This article contributes to that understanding by synthesizing

Current concerns about lack of diversity in supply of critical metals have spurred research into utilizing domestic sources, particularly from waste streams. Sustainability strategies like urban mining, industrial symbiosis, and the circular economy suggest avenues to realize new supplies of critical metals. In this work we explore the resource and economic potential for extracting rare earth elements

COVID-19 has imposed significant detrimental effects on the global hospitality sector. These effects have primarily been considered from the socio-economic perspective, ignoring the implications of the pandemic for the environmental performance of hospitality services. By drawing upon emerging evidence from various academic and non-academic sources, this conceptual paper critically evaluates the implications

Laboratory studies indicate that municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) bottom ash (BA) can serve as a suitable road base material. However, very little is known about how field-scale design variables, such as layer thickness and compaction effort, and changes in moisture content over time affect the long-term performance of MSWI BA base courses. Understanding how these parameters affect the physical

For deep carbon emission reductions beyond decarbonization of the energy supply, among reduction streams, recycling-induced elimination of materially retained carbon (MRC) releases to the atmosphere have a great direct reduction potential. Moreover, the use of recycled materials indirectly avoids the manifestation of cradle-to-gate carbon footprints of virgin materials that would otherwise enter anthropogenic

Firms today are striving to adopt innovations to ensure their survival, value creation and success. Innovation is increasingly seen as an outcome of a collaborative process, involving various stakeholders both within and outside the firms, in supply chain relationships. Collaborative arrangements are gaining traction and the focus of innovation is shifting from firms to their supply chain networks

This study contributes to assess the sustainable solid-waste management of coastal and marine cities in Vietnam due to prior studies are lacking to develop a set of measures in hierarchical structure. Coastal and marine tourism cities are the largest and fastest growing segment of the tourism industry. City infrastructures are being developed in the absence of a solid-waste management capacity and

Bulk density is an effective evaluation criterion for food and residual household solid waste (HSW) source separation accuracy, but the effect of seasonal components on its variation is unknown. The objective was to accurately determine seasonal variation in bulk-density based waste identification and to ascertain the dominant controlling subcomponents in food waste leading to seasonal variation. A

This study compared the sustainability of six alternatives for the treatment of industrial wastewater from a gasifier, considering both environmental and economic aspects by the approaches of: uses Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC). The processes have been developed under the zero liquid discharge approach and included a chemical removal of pollutants by using Fenton and neutralization

In order to make the sustainable development of transport system, China has taken actions toward the electrification transition of vehicles. However, whether the electric vehicles (EVs) are more environmentally friendly than the conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) in China is still not clear due to a lack of complete and consistent environmental impact comparison of vehicles. This

Checking the circular economy (CE) efficiency of industrial parks and exploring the potential reasons involved have not been systematically investigated. Recent researches lacked a unified and up-to-date framework toward CE in industrial parks emerging in high-quality development stage. It is therefore critical to build a new dimension and quantify the CE efficiency of industrial parks under the new

While significant focus has been placed on the environmental and health impacts of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) treatment, a gap exists with respect to job creation in WEEE treatment. The creation of employment opportunities, and especially of decent work, is an important factor in the growing green and circular economies. This research investigates potential job creation in the

Solid waste open dumping is a big issue in the developing world. Environmental and social impacts due to this practice affect population health, increasing the spread of diseases and child mortality. The safe collection of waste is the first step for reducing these impacts. This research assesses households’ waste collection in a Bolivian developing city with the aim to find a solution to fostering

Automobile companies have attempted to achieve a transition of vehicle types from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to new-generation vehicles (NGVs). Many studies have addressed the resource-related issues of vehicles. Despite the significant attention to the potential impacts of resource use in the LCIA narrative, the volume of natural resource exploitation has yet to be fully investigated

Natural adsorptive materials are mainly based on physical adsorption and have limited adsorption capacity. Artificial adsorptive aggregates lead to great potential in improving water quality for water treatment. This study aims to develop a porous and sustainable adsorptive aggregate combining both chemical and physical adsorption capacities. Industrial by-product steel slag (SS) powder is used in

Energy and materials support food production, maintain and expand material stocks (e.g. buildings and roads) and provide services. In this paper, an exergy-based approach is used to provide an integrated perspective on the evolution of societal resource flows and stocks. The scope of this analysis is from resource extraction (primary exergy stage) to end uses such as low temperature heating and illumination