Special Issue "End of Life Products and Processes in the Emerging Circular Economy"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Edwin K.L. Tam
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Civil and Environmental Engineering, Cross appointed, Mechanical Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada
Interests: sustainability and resiliency in infrastructure systems and engineering; materials end-of-life waste management and recovery/vehicle recycling; life cycle assessment and approaches; brownfields renewal and redevelopment
Dr. Rajeev Ruparathna
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada
Interests: infrastructure lifecycle management using building information modelling (BIM); lifecycle assessment of engineering systems; multistakeholder management in sustainable procurement; risk-based decision making
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Rajesh Seth
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada
Interests: water and wastewater treatment; ozonation and advanced oxidation processes; microbial contamination and remediation; contaminant fate during sewage treatment process—monitoring/modelling/removal

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The circular economy (CE) has emerged as one of the driving concepts behind a renewed focus on sustainability and is increasingly adopted by nations, organizations, and countries worldwide as the new approach towards environmental, economic, and even social parity. Does embracing the CE produce significant benefits beyond our current efforts, though? There are already programs and approaches operating currently in this circularity-oriented space, ranging from the Blue Box curbside recycling program, to disciplines such as industrial ecology, to current efforts that help to guide engineers in their designs. However, CE’s more substantive, comprehensive approach for circularity encompasses organic cycles, as well as the often-overlooked potential for reuse and refurbishment. This gives CE a much more robust context for environmental stewardship and economic growth given the intricate relationship between resource consumption and climate change. For CE to succeed, it needs to demonstrate realistic and achievable applications and outcomes that move beyond addressing simple materials and goods (e.g., textiles, beverage recyclables), to more complex, durable goods, and even processes. Meaningful and user-understandable interpretations and measures of CE need to be developed and adopted so that incorporating bio-based wastes, energy, and material re-use into circularity can be assessed consistently and critically as CE evolves into the mid-21st century.

This Special Issue on sustainability and the circular economy invites manuscripts that critically examine how end-of-life materials, products or processes can be innovatively utilized to support the circular economy. These topics include but are not limited to:

1. The Role of Packaging in the Shifting to the Circular Economy

From pop cans to plastic bags, packaging is pervasive in daily life. However, the environmental cost of resource consumption and the waste produced from packaging is enormous—according to the EPA, containers and packaging account for approximately 28% of all municipal solid waste in the US. In the effort to shift towards a circular economy, innovation in packaging design, use, and disposal are key to addressing this issue, particularly in an era where pandemic or other global crises again promote the extensive use of single-use containers and materials.

2. End of Life Waste Management for the Circular Economy or Maximizing Material Utility to Advance the Circular Economy

The current rate of material consumption and disposal is unsustainable in many aspects, from the energy and water footprints required to produce goods to natural resource depletion and the resulting end of life waste. The circular economy provides an alternative model which greatly reduces waste. One of the key principles of the circular economy, as defined by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, is keeping products and materials in use to their fullest potential. This can be addressed through a variety of systems and strategies implemented across disciplines and sectors. However, the focus remains very much on what we are accustomed to in our household or office: the “blue box” curbside or public recycling containers that focus on materials recovery. What is underexplored and underutilized are the vast capacities for product reuse, refurbishment, and repurposing. Maximizing the use of materials and products once they have been produced is key to advancing a circular economy and a more sustainable future.

3. The Circular Economy and Our Built Environment

The principles of CE apply not only to our single use, simple items, but the largest constructs designed and built, such as bridges and buildings. How can we envision, however, post-use scenarios such that our current generation of designers and engineers can future proof structures 50 to even 100 years from now so that they remain useful in the circular economy? It can and should be greater than simply breaking down walls for its component constituents for aggregate. What are the creative design principles and approaches and material selection strategies to allow future generations the ability to not only recover materials, but to effectively repurpose infrastructure?

4. Establishing the Circular Economy in Wastewater Systems through Life Cycle Assessment Driven

5. Effluent Product Valorization, Recovery and Reuse

Wastewater is treated by most major municipalities, and current methods and systems are designed to address specific constituents such as organics. They focus mainly on water reuse and reducing the impacts of effluent discharge into natural water systems. Improved methods, however, can create a secondary market for these resources by giving them both a monetary and environmental value. In addition, technologies to extract useful compounds such as metals and ammonia from sewage sludge are being developed. While wastewater treatment residuals have been used for decades, adapting life cycle assessment methods that critically compare the supply chain of waste stream reuse versus virgin resource use can help to establish waste valorization. This value provides opportunities for business, reuse, and environmental impact reduction, thus instituting the circular economy. Governmental policies that encompass these principles can ensure implementation and secondary market stability.

Prof. Dr. Edwin K.L. Tam
Dr. Rajeev Ruparathna
Prof. Dr. Rajesh Seth
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • end-of-life
  • reuse
  • refurbish
  • recycle
  • recover
  • circular economy
  • sustainability
  • design-for-recycling
  • climate change
  • resource consumption

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
Are Bottle Banks Sufficiently Effective for Increasing Glass Recycling Rates?
Sustainability 2021, 13(17), 9540; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13179540 - 25 Aug 2021
Viewed by 224
Abstract
The Netherlands is a frontrunner in the EU regarding the circular economy. On a national scale, there are higher targets than the EU for different packaging materials as plastics, glass, paper/cartons, and aluminium. For glass, the government advocates a recycling rate of more [...] Read more.
The Netherlands is a frontrunner in the EU regarding the circular economy. On a national scale, there are higher targets than the EU for different packaging materials as plastics, glass, paper/cartons, and aluminium. For glass, the government advocates a recycling rate of more than 90%. In 2017, the rate realised was 86%. To reach this 4% higher goal, the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate wants to improve the collection infrastructure by increasing the number of bottle banks, with 800 by 2021. However, in the literature, an effectiveness analysis is lacking. Based on empirical evidence with data from 2007–2019, we show that increasing the number of bottle banks is not effective. Implementing a unit-based pricing system as a priced bag or container for unsorted waste can be more effective in achieving this goal, although this can have serious drawbacks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue End of Life Products and Processes in the Emerging Circular Economy)

Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Planned Paper 1:

Title: What are the instrument to achieve a circular economy in recycling of glass?

Authors: Prof. Elbert Dijkgraaf and Prof. Raymond Gradus

Affiliation: School of Business and Economics and Tinbergen Institute, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: The Netherlands is a frontrunner in the EU regarding the circular economy. On a national scale there are higher targets than the EU for different packaging materials as  plastics, glass, paper/cartons and aluminum. For glass the government advocates a recycling rate of more than 90%. In 2017, the realized rate was 86%. To reach this 4% higher goal the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate wants to improve the collection infrastructure by increasing the number of bottle banks with 800 by 2021. However, a cost-effectiveness analysis is lacking. Based on empirical evidence with data from 2007-2017, we show that increasing the number of bottle banks is rather ineffective. Implementing an unit-based pricing system as a priced bag or container for unsorted waste can be more effective to achieve this goal, although this can have serious drawbacks.

Keywords: glass recycling; circular economy; waste infrastructure; local government; Netherlands

Planned Paper 2:

Title: Comparison between new machine smart retrofitting and purchase for Industry 4.0 based production systems to: an approach based on the Triple Bottom Line

Authors: Prof. Maurizio Bevilacqua and Prof. Filippo Emanuele Ciarapica

Affiliation: Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale e Scienze Matematiche, Università Politecnica delle Marche, 60100 Ancona, Italy

Abstract: The emerging scenario designed by digital technologies connected to Industry 4.0 pushes towards increasingly sustainable companies. Access to the multiple benefits of digitalization such as increased productivity, flexibility, efficiency, quality, lower consumption of resources and improvement of worker safety is not only possible by purchasing new generation machinery but in recent times thanks also to the retrofitting process that therefore turns out to be a valid alternative. This work aims to present a framework able to assess the sustainability in relation to its three aspects: the economic, environmental and social aspects of machine adaptation options with particular reference to the Analytic Hierarchy Process technique. Then we move to the case study in which, thanks to the methodology previously found, the sustainability of the smart retrofitting performed on a column drill is compared with the replacement of the same machine tool.

 

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