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Resources, Conservation and Recycling
Pergamon
Resources, Conservation and Recycling

Pergamon

0921-3449

Resources, Conservation and Recycling/Journal Resources, Conservation and RecyclingEI
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    Global copper cycles and greenhouse gas emissions in a 1.5 degrees C world

    Northey, StephenGiurco, DamienWatari, TakumaHata, Sho...
    11页
    查看更多>>摘要:Moving towards a 1.5 degrees C world could fundamentally alter the future copper cycle through two key drivers: the implementation of decarbonization technologies and the imposition of an emissions budget on production ac-tivities. This study explores the impact of these drivers on the global copper cycle using a dynamic material flow analysis, coupled with an optimization technique. The results show that global final demand for copper could increase by a factor of 2.5 between 2015 and 2050, reaching 62 million metric tons, with approximately 4% of the increase coming from copper used in renewable energy-based power plants and 14% coming from electric vehicles. While there are sufficient resources to meet this growing demand, the greenhouse gas emissions of the copper cycle could account for approximately 2.7% of the total emissions budget by 2050, up from 0.3% today. Assessment of possible mitigation efforts by the copper industry shows that this can be halved, but will still be 35% short of the emissions budget target based on proportional responsibility, i.e., applying the same mitigation rate to all sectors. Rather, collective action is required by all stakeholders interacting with the copper cycle to bridge the mitigation gap, including through efforts to drive advanced sorting, higher fabrication yields, extended product lifetimes, and increased service efficiency of in-use copper stock.

    Chemical testing of mechanically recycled polyethylene terephthalate for food packaging in the European Union

    Tsochatzis, E. D.Lopes, J. AlbertoCorredig, M.
    12页
    查看更多>>摘要:Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a polymer deemed safe to be mechanically recycled and used in food contact applications. Its recycled form (rPET) can be used as a food contact material (FCM). Although this is an obvious positive step towards a more circular economy, the development of an appropriate analytical toolbox to experimentally assess and evaluate the various steps during end of life and mechanical recycling is still at its infancy. The safety of the decontamination process is currently evaluated following a conventional modelling approach applied to a specific number of compounds (challenge test). However, additional compounds, quality markers and process controls are needed, with respect to migrating substances, potential non-intentionally added substances (NIAS), contaminants and known polymeric degrading compounds. This would ensure an additional level of safety and provide recomendations for the application of appropriate methods when ensuring full compliance with safety standards for rPET. This review presents the current regulatory framework and the most recent developments in analytical methodologies related to compliance testing. It also highlights some of most described chemical substances found in food-grade rPET.

    Environmental footprints of improving dietary quality of Chinese rural residents: A modeling study

    Hu, YuanchaoSu, MeirongSun, MingxingWang, Yafei...
    10页
    查看更多>>摘要:There is an urgent need to promote a healthy diet in rural areas because of the prevalent malnutrition. However, further investigation is needed to reconcile the debate on whether improving dietary quality for rural residents will increase the environmental footprints or not, especially in developing countries. Applying a life cycle assessment method, here we investigate the changing trend of multiple environmental footprints of improved dietary quality scenarios for Chinese rural residents. We show that the average score for the China Healthy Diet Index (CHDI) for the rural diet in 2019 is 52.6 out of 100. This is lower quality than that of the Chinese urban diet in 2012. All the food-related environmental footprints and expenditure will decrease if CHDI improves to 70 and 80, further improvement of dietary quality will occasionally increase the environmental footprints. Food-related expenditure will generally increase, but the proportion in total disposable expenditure will decrease, along with improving dietary quality and affluence in the future. We show that the changes of environmental footprints depend on the level of dietary quality improvement, but additional strategies (e.g., reducing food loss and waste, and agricultural innovations) are still required to achieve a win win outcome for health and the environment.

    Combinatorial optimization of construction waste collection and transportation: A case study of Hong Kong

    Lu, WeishengZhao, ZhanWebster, Christopher J.Bi, Wei...
    14页
    查看更多>>摘要:Although construction waste consistently contributes the highest proportion of all solid waste landfilled, its collection and transportation has received little attention. This research conducts a case study of Hong Kong with the aim of unraveling the causes of ineffective construction waste management from a logistics perspective and developing strategies to improve efficiency of waste collection and transportation. We analyze 112,892 individual trips undertaken by 2,563 construction waste hauling trucks and find three critical issues, namely irrational facility choice, disorganized trip chains, and serious underloading. We design an order-to-order distance matrix, based on which we develop a combinatorial approach to optimizing construction waste collection and transportation through (1) optimal facility choice, (2) proper order sequencing, and (3) increased loading ratio. Simulation results indicate that optimal facility choice is most effective of the three strategies, reducing travel distance by 15.2% (15,256 km) and saving 15.3% (21,467 kg) in CO2-eq emissions. Combining the three strategies creates the best optimization effects, saving 20.3% of travel distance (20,346 km) and 18.2% of CO(2-eq )emissions (25,544 kg). Our findings provide valuable insights for construction waste management and suggest strategies (e.g., developing a work dispatch system like Uber or proper vehicle routing algorithms) for improving waste collection efficiency and reducing carbon emissions.

    Supply network collaborations in a circular economy: A case study of Swedish steel recycling

    Berlin, DanielFeldmann, AndreasNuur, Cali
    11页
    查看更多>>摘要:Supply network collaboration has been recognised as a vital enabler in the transition to a circular economy. Even so, the existing literature has directed limited attention to the nature of these relationships and the motivation behind them. Hence, there is a need to understand the actual activities of actors engaged in collaboration to address this knowledge gap. The steel industry presents an interesting example. Given that more than one-third of the world's steel production originates from scrap, its supply is essential to the survival of the steel industry. Based on an explorative case study, this paper investigates collaboration of steel producers, a procurement intermediary and scrap dealers to facilitate steel recycling. These actors deal with the practical challenge of variation in the quantity and quality of steel scrap by engaging in various types of collaboration. This paper seeks to analyse the nature of these collaborations and answer the question of why actors engage in supply network collaboration. The paper identifies a complex web of relationships and outlines differing motives for and against collaboration, with specific focus on three types. While quality control is the main motive in dyadic vertical collaboration between a buyer and a supplier, efficiency is the main motive for both horizontal collaboration between buyers and lateral collaboration amongst all actors in the supply network. Thus, this paper adds to the conventional wisdom of sequential, dyadic, linear and vertical relationships, providing a deeper understanding of the types of supply network collaboration from the underexplored context of steel recycling.

    From resource extraction to manufacturing and construction: flows of stock-building materials in 177 countries from 1900 to 2016

    Plank, BarbaraStreeck, JanVirag, DorisKrausmann, Fridolin...
    13页
    查看更多>>摘要:Global material stocks of infrastructure, buildings, machinery and consumer products are growing rapidly, driving emissions and other environmental impacts during materials extraction, processing, construction and waste. However, international data on economy-wide material flows (ew-MFA) currently is limited to national extraction, trade and consumption and does not integrate material processing. Further developments for ew-MFA are required, ranging from more transparent data compilation and uncertainty assessments and improved representation of socio-economic material cycles to large spatio-temporal coverage. We herein present a novel ewMFA database covering 14 major stock-building materials in 177 countries for the period 1900-2016. Included materials are, i.a., concrete, asphalt, bricks, timber, steel, aluminum, copper, other metals, plastics and glass. We developed a high-quality dataset by combining material flow accounting and analysis principles into a consistent 10-step compilation procedure, including the differentiation of processing stages from extraction to construction, as well as systematic uncertainty assessments. We find that global primary gross-additions-to-stock (GASprim) grew exponentially over almost the entire time period, largely in unison with GDP. In the year 2016, 39.7 +/- 6.1 Gt/year of raw materials were extracted, of which 23% turned into waste during processing, resulting in 30.7 +/- 5.7 Gt/year of GASprim. From the 1990s onwards, China outpaced all other countries in terms of annual percapita GASprim and has dominated global dynamics since then. Across all countries, we find that per-capita GASprim and GDP decoupled over time. However, we find no indications for novel economic development pathways which are substantially less material-intensive in terms of stock-building than in the past.

    Climate change mitigation efficiency of electric vehicle charging infrastructure in China: From the perspective of energy transition and circular economy

    Li, GuijunLuo, TanxiaosiSong, Yanqiu
    12页
    查看更多>>摘要:As electrification becomes one of the most promising ways for low carbon transition in the transport sector, electric vehicle charging infrastructure (EVCI) has been widely perceived as a vital public service and strategic asset for supporting the transition in China. Considering the massive investments required by EVCI deployment and the urgent need to mitigate climate change, it is significant to maximize the environmental benefits of EVCI with limited resources. However, current studies mainly focus on the economic efficiency of EVCI, with limited attention to the environmental perspective. Hence, this study employs the slacks-based data envelopment analysis (SBM-DEA) model and Malmquist Productivity Index to evaluate the climate change mitigation efficiency of EVCI in 30 provinces of China from 2016 to 2019. The results show substantial inter-provincial variations in current efficiency levels and dynamic changes. To explain the differences and provide theoretical reference for future improvement, this study conducts determinant analysis and finds that resource utilization and energy structure have significant impacts on EVCI mitigation efficiency. Based on the results, this study further puts forward targeted efficiency improvement strategies for provinces at different development stages from circular economy and energy transition perspectives.

    Life cycle assessment of global warming potential of feedstock recycling technologies: Case study of waste gasification and pyrolysis in an integrated inventory model for waste treatment and chemical production in Germany

    Meyer, BerndKeller, FlorianVoss, Raoul LukasLee, Roh Pin...
    11页
    查看更多>>摘要:Feedstock recycling in the form of gasification and pyrolysis are promising alternatives to thermal treatment for the utilization of non-recyclable waste fractions. To date, the systemic consequences of their application for waste treatment and chemical production as well as associated environmental effects remain insufficiently investigated. To address this gap, this study introduces an integrated life cycle inventory model based on Ger-many's production system which encompassed the treatment of major post-consumer waste fractions (municipal solid waste and source-separated packaging waste) and the production of major base chemicals (lower olefins, BTX aromatics, methanol, ammonia and hydrogen). The utilized approach facilitates a prospective comparative assessment of feedstock recycling, conventional and PTX-based production routes under uniform system frameworks, accounting for differences in production characteristics (e.g. product yields and utility demands) with minimized allocation assumptions. An evaluation of the global warming potential shows that under as-sumptions resembling the current production system (Framework Status Quo), feedstock recycling pathways lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, with gasification exhibiting higher emission reduction than pyrolysis. Under the assumption that limited renewable energy is available for system emission reduction (Framework Energy Integration), a higher greenhouse gas reduction is observed for feedstock recycling compared to PTX-based chemical production pathways.

    Plastic or not plastic? That's the problem: analysing the Italian students purchasing behavior of mineral water bottles made with eco-friendly packaging

    Galati, AntoninoAlaimo, Leonardo SalvatoreCiaccio, TeresaVrontis, Demetris...
    13页
    查看更多>>摘要:European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy draws new shapes of economy in order to protect the environment and reduce marine pollution, GHGs and countries' dependence on imported fossil fuels. The core of EU Strategy is also to try to transform the way plastic products are designed, produced, used and recycled in the EU. Italy is the first country in Europe and the second in the world for consumption of bottled water, with remarkable environmental impacts, from production to distribution. Starting from social science theory, this work aims to investigate consumers' behavior and the related factors that influence their behavior pertaining to the purchase of. mineral water bottles made with eco-friendly packaging, taking the student population of the University of Palermo as a reference sample. The work carries out an analysis by means of a fuzzy approach that is based on the evidence that the real world is so complex that it cannot be treated by means of clear rigid propositions. Findings show the presence of high sensitivity to pay for green bottles. This work further contributes to the existing research by emphasizing the crucial role of new marketing and policy plans based on the attitudinal, behavioral and socio-economic characteristics of consumers. Thus, this study delivers insights for policy-makers towards formulating favourable policies to increase sustainable firm processes and consumers' green consumption within circular models.

    U.S. lithium resources from geothermal and extraction feasibility (vol 169, 105514, 2021)

    Toba, Ange-LionelNguyen, RubyCole, CarsonNeupane, Ghanashyam...
    1页