Gateway of Landfilled Plastic Waste Towards Circular Economy in Europe
, Mait Kriipsalu 2, Dmitry Porshnov 3, Yahya Jani 1, Viesturs Ozols 3, Kaur-Mikk Pehme 2, Vita Rudovica 4, Inga Grinfelde 5, Jovita Pilecka 5, Zane Vincevica-Gaile 3, Tsitsino Turkadze 6, William Hogland 1 and Maris Klavins 3Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The quality and the impact of the work are a little bit unclear.
According to instructions of the journal, communication paper should be short and significant. As a reviewer role, I cannot see these values from the work. Moreover, it looks more a review study than any kind of communication. The structure of work should be totally re-organized. You have mentioned circular economy in your title, but I cannot see any mention of it in your work..
The language of work is out of scientific paper. It might be checked before next steps.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers and Editorial Board,We highly appreciate your contribution in the improvement of our article for publication in the scientific MDPI journal “Separations”.
Our manuscript entitled “Gateway of Landfilled Plastic Waste towards Circular Economy in Europe” has been revised and below you will find the explanations and comments of various serious elaborations implemented as well as comments. Taking into account almost all the suggestions, a revision of the manuscript was performed, except serious structural changes causing problems to keep the discussed paradygm on discourse line. We changed slightly the title that we focus on European landfills.
Additionally, English grammar was proof-read once more, the list of references was supplemented as requested by reviewers.
Abstract was elaborated and written in better form, introductory part was supported by amendments on problems with plastic waste in landfills. Plastic waste to developing countries is a challenge probably more than in Europe however our focus was on tackling the main problem: “If we can go beyond-the-zero-waste with landfill mined plastic in future and how do we work in right analytical way to deal with this mixed waste in a circular way?” This is our focus and the third chapter “Thermogravimetry as a Promising Method in Plastic Waste Decomposition” is the option we provide. Further research must open the doors wider. This is our novelty and we significantly emphasized it.
It is far too early to talk about economic value, however, everyone knows that new technologies always are expensive at the beginning. Let’s take for example “reverse osmosis” – nobody believed in 1990-ties that it might be serious economically viable alternative for water treatment. Now this technology is used everywhere. In this case we decided not to provide exact calculations in this mini-review as it would be rather formal approach and too early (also landfill mining projects rarely search for benefits directly from material – focus mainly is remediation and real estate).
We understand that Editor and Reviewers did the best job possible to pinpoint weak points and we tried as much hard as we had in realistic terms to keep the main idea we want to provide to readers.
Kind regards,
Dr. Juris Burlakovs,
in behalf of the authors’ collective.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
The theme is fundamentally novel, but the approach to the topic is incomplete at several points. Significant changes are needed in some of the elements of the article. The description of the abstract is very short and simplistic, it does not formulate exactly the result achieved and the conclusion. In the introductory section, it should be determined where the problem is basically a problem. The geographical definition of the areas concerned, or the definition of the economic level, would be the most preferred. I think that the export and deposit of plastic waste to developing countries is a major challenge than the problem of European landfills. This question should also be discussed in the description.
In Chapter 2 "Concerns, Challenges and Solutions in Plastic Waste Treatment", there is no description of the dimension of each problem area.The areas presented (Recycling, Pyro-Gasification, Resource Recovery, Landfill Research) are not oriented in either waste volume or economic value.
The description of "Thermogravimetry as a Promising Method in Plastic Waste Decomposition" presented in the third chapter is the most important part of the paper, which is an excellent idea for a systemic solution of plastic waste treatment, but the context of the solution is not revealed in the description.The main question is whether the use of thermogravimetric methods is recommended by authors at local, regional or global level. It is not clear from the description that in what system operation the technological solutions are cost effective! What information do we have about these technologies in practice?
In summary, the idea behind the paper is novel, and further efforts are needed to approach the problem and present the context of the solution.
Recommended additional literature:
Horvath, B.; Mallinguh, E.; Fogarassy, C. Designing Business Solutions for Plastic Waste Management to Enhance Circular Transitions in Kenya. Sustainability 2018, 10, 1664.
Othman, S.N.; Noor, Z.Z.; Abba, A.H.; Yusuf, R.O.; Hassan, M.A.A. Review on life cycle assessment of integrated solid waste management in some Asian countries. J. Clean. Prod. 2013, 41, 251–262.
Mativenga, P.T.; Sultan, A.A.M.; Agwa-Ejon, J.; Mbohwa, C. Composites in a Circular Economy: A Study of United Kingdom and South Africa. Procedia CIRP 2017, 61, 691–696.
etc.
Author Response
Dear Reviewers and Editorial Board,
We highly appreciate your contribution in the improvement of our article for publication in the scientific MDPI journal “Separations”.
Our manuscript entitled “Gateway of Landfilled Plastic Waste towards Circular Economy in Europe” has been revised and below you will find the explanations and comments of various serious elaborations implemented as well as comments. Taking into account almost all the suggestions, a revision of the manuscript was performed, except serious structural changes causing problems to keep the discussed paradygm on discourse line. We changed slightly the title that we focus on European landfills.
Additionally, English grammar was proof-read once more, the list of references was supplemented as requested by reviewers.
Abstract was elaborated and written in better form, introductory part was supported by amendments on problems with plastic waste in landfills. Plastic waste to developing countries is a challenge probably more than in Europe however our focus was on tackling the main problem: “If we can go beyond-the-zero-waste with landfill mined plastic in future and how do we work in right analytical way to deal with this mixed waste in a circular way?” This is our focus and the third chapter “Thermogravimetry as a Promising Method in Plastic Waste Decomposition” is the option we provide. Further research must open the doors wider. This is our novelty and we significantly emphasized it.
It is far too early to talk about economic value, however, everyone knows that new technologies always are expensive at the beginning. Let’s take for example “reverse osmosis” – nobody believed in 1990-ties that it might be serious economically viable alternative for water treatment. Now this technology is used everywhere. In this case we decided not to provide exact calculations in this mini-review as it would be rather formal approach and too early (also landfill mining projects rarely search for benefits directly from material – focus mainly is remediation and real estate).
We understand that Editor and Reviewers did the best job possible to pinpoint weak points and we tried as much hard as we had in realistic terms to keep the main idea we want to provide to readers.
Kind regards,
Dr. Juris Burlakovs,
in behalf of the authors’ collective.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper is better than previously. I haven't any contribution for it.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank You very much for Your great work when revising the paper and we did the best additionally also now to improve the style, grammar, good-looking and logical sequences of idioms during the last revision. The Author Team
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Thank you for the corrections on the paper, the different parts of the article are more clear and understandable. Finally please remove the citation from conclusion part and don't repeat yourself - "Recovery of plastic from landfill mined waste is possible through gasification, pyrolysis, incineration and in some cases, recycling [46]." - with general sentences!
Author Response
Dear Reviewer, thank You for double intensive revision of the paper, we tried to do the best in Round 2 and removed unnecessary parts when ideas are repeating in twice, also we did additional grammar and style revision with the outer expert of English language to guarantee the level appropriate to the Journal.
