Special Issue "Environmental Sustainability of Current Waste Management Practices"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Sustainability and Applications".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Rita Khanna
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Materials Science and Engineering (Ret.), University of New South Wales (UNSW) Australia, NSW 2052, Sydney, Australia
Interests: waste management; high-temperature phenomena; electronic waste; waste plastics; waste refractories; material processing; toxic emissions during waste treatments
Prof. Dr. Yury Konyukhov
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Functional Nanosystems and High-Temperature Materials, National University of Science and Technology “MISiS”, 119049 Moscow, Russia
Interests: recycling of metallurgical wastes and mining tails; nanomaterials; structural and mechanical properties; high-temperature materials and processing; heavy metal extraction from wastewater; magnetism studies.
Prof. Dr. Igor Burmistrov
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Engineering Centre, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, 117997 Moscow, Russia
Interests: renewable energy; thermo-electrochemical cells; nanomaterials; polymer composites; waste-water treatment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue will focus on recent developments in the field of ‘Waste Management’ including solid and liquid wastes, their collection, segregation, disposal, and processing in a cost-effective environmentally sustainable manner. Different types of wastes may include municipal, industrial, medical, construction, demolition, agricultural, electronic, hazardous, sewage sludge, etc. The focus will be on mitigating various environmental issues and on steps taken to enhance the sustainability of current procedures and practices around the globe. Theoretical, simulation, or experimental studies on waste generation, characterization, economics, life-cycle assessment, and environmental factors in various scenarios are also welcome as journal articles or reviews.

This Special Issue will be part of the section “Environmental Sustainability and Applications” of the journal Sustainability. We welcome the submission of high-quality research or review articles focusing on waste processing, recycling, material recovery, and the environmental impact of sustainable waste management. Specific topics include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Novel technologies and upgrades;
  • Environmental impacts;
  • Economic factors;
  • Waste regulations;
  • Environmental policies;
  • Resource recovery;
  • Theoretical and experimental research;
  • Other topics of interest in the field.

Prof. Dr. Rita Khanna
Prof. Dr. Yury Konyukhov
Prof. Dr. Igor Burmistrov
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

  • municipal waste
  • electronic waste
  • industrial waste
  • medical waste
  • construction waste
  • agricultural waste
  • hazardous waste
  • economic factors
  • technology upgrades
  • environmental impact
  • sustainability
  • landfilling
  • urban mining
  • developing countries

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
Toward Sustainable Environmental Management of Healthcare Waste: A Holistic Perspective
Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 5280; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13095280 - 09 May 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 740
Abstract
The management of healthcare waste requires a sustained and holistic approach involving a range of parties. This is challenging for governments, especially in developing countries, where waste management systems have limited capacities for addressing the issue. Using Saudi Arabia as a case study, [...] Read more.
The management of healthcare waste requires a sustained and holistic approach involving a range of parties. This is challenging for governments, especially in developing countries, where waste management systems have limited capacities for addressing the issue. Using Saudi Arabia as a case study, this paper followed a multi-method approach, including policy analysis, observation, semi-structured interviews, and a focus group, to explore the country’s healthcare waste management system. The study estimated that Saudi government hospitals across the country, every year, throw away in landfills paper (27,000 tons), plastic (15,000 tons), food (10,000 tons), glass (8000 tons), and metal (7000 tons). Regrettably, all these tons of materials end up in landfills without any form of recycling. A number of challenges were identified, reflecting mainly the lack of a legal framework, waste training, coordination among stakeholders, and social responsibility. This study generated new knowledge about waste management systems by exploring how their performance is shaped by the processes occurring at the policy, organization, and individual levels. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability of Current Waste Management Practices)
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Article
Harvesting Waste Thermal Energy Using a Surface-Modified Carbon Fiber-Based Thermo-Electrochemical Cell
Sustainability 2021, 13(3), 1377; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13031377 - 28 Jan 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1237
Abstract
An important direction in the development of energy saving policy is harvesting and conversion into electricity of low-grade waste heat. The present paper is devoted to the improvement of the efficiency of thermo-electrochemical cells based on carbon fiber electrodes and potassium ferri-/ferrocyanide redox [...] Read more.
An important direction in the development of energy saving policy is harvesting and conversion into electricity of low-grade waste heat. The present paper is devoted to the improvement of the efficiency of thermo-electrochemical cells based on carbon fiber electrodes and potassium ferri-/ferrocyanide redox electrolyte. The influence of the carbon fiber electrode surface modification (magnetron deposition of silver and titanium or infiltration implantation of nanoscale titanium oxide) on the output power and parameters of the impedance equivalent scheme of a thermo-electrochemical cell has been studied. Two kinds of cell designs (a conventional electrochemical cell with a salt bridge and a coin cell-type body) were investigated. It was found that the nature of the surface modification of electrodes can change the internal resistance of the cell by three orders of magnitude. The dependence of the equivalent scheme parameters and output power density of the thermoelectric cell on the type of electrode materials was presented. It was observed that the maximum power for carbon fiber modified with titanium metal and titanium oxide was 25.2 mW/m2 and the efficiency was 1.37%. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Environmental Sustainability of Current Waste Management Practices)
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