Search Results (12)

Augmented consumerism has propelled electronic innovation, leading to unprecedented growth in e-waste. Mishandling of e-waste poses environmental and human health hazards that necessitate a review of existing technologies and regulatory frameworks for effective e-waste management. Over the years, advancements in e-waste treatment technologies have addressed challenges uncovered in conventional e-waste treatment methods. This review comprehensively discusses valorization, regulations, and the environmental and health hazards imposed by e-waste mismanagement. The review adopted the novel VIRE framework to justify the research question and followed PRISMA analysis to filter the research basket. This study highlights that progressive policy frameworks are less efficient until inhibiting factors for successful implementation are addressed, especially in developing countries. The informal sector dominates in impeding the successful implementation of e-waste regulations, requiring integration with the formal sector as an initiative to reduce unlawful e-waste handling. Moreover, e-waste holds significant potential for economic value through precious metal recovery. An integrated approach of thermal techniques followed by bioleaching could be a cost-effective alternative for enhanced metal recovery from e-waste. There exists ample opportunity for further advancement in treatment technologies through the integration of discrete techniques, reframing regulatory frameworks to minimize unauthorized processing, and cooperative international agreements for collective action on sustainable e-waste management. Full article

Recently, increased global awareness of environmental sustainability and ethical consumerism has amplified the demand for sustainable alternatives to animal-derived leather. Traditional leather manufacturing faces significant ethical and ecological challenges, including greenhouse gas emissions, excessive water consumption, deforestation, and toxic chemical usage. Vegan leather has emerged as a promising solution, predominantly fabricated from petroleum-based synthetic materials such as polyurethane (PU) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). However, these materials have sustainability limitations due to their non-biodegradability and associated environmental burdens. To overcome these issues, this review critically explores the feasibility of developing vegan leather using gel-based materials derived from natural and synthetic polymers. These materials offer precise structural controllability, excellent biodegradability, and the potential for significantly improved mechanical performance through hybridization and nanocomposite strategies. Despite their promising attributes, gel-based materials face significant limitations, including insufficient tensile strength, poor abrasion resistance, susceptibility to swelling, limited long-term stability, and challenges in scaling up for industrial production. This paper outlines the structural and physical properties required for viable leather substitutes, reviews opportunities provided by gel-based materials, addresses associated technical challenges, and proposes comprehensive strategies for enhancing mechanical properties and developing sustainable, eco-friendly production processes. Future research directions emphasize hybrid composite development, nanoparticle integration, circular manufacturing processes, and multi-disciplinary collaboration to establish gel-based vegan leather as a viable, sustainable, and market-competitive alternative to conventional animal leather. Full article

Drawing on Karl Marx’s ecological concepts of the “metabolic rift” and the “emancipation of senses”, this paper explores an alternative ecocinema that integrates the ecological with the social and the economic. Early Hollywood films, such as Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and The Good Earth (1937), represent the metabolic rift in human relationships as a byproduct of the metabolic rift with nature created in the process of urbanization; hence, they can be regarded as precursors to an alternative ecocinema, which I refer to as “metabolic cinema”. The Story of the Golden Bell (Jinling Zhuan), a comedy film produced during the Chinese Great Leap Forward in 1958, offers an intriguing case for socialist metabolic cinema as a multisensory medianature that participates in and facilitates the metabolic process between humans and nature, as well as the social metabolism among humans, despite the period’s notorious ecological record. The film not only consciously moves away from the visual-centric model associated with capitalist consumerism by using the aural to rectify the once-aberrant visual but also demonstrates how romantic love, as one of the human senses, must be emancipated along with other senses through denouncing utilitarianism and commercialism and, subsequently, returning to need-based labor as the universal condition for the metabolic interaction between humans and nature. Full article

The fashion industry represents a significant source of consumerism within the global economy and requires substantial funding, eco-friendly practices, and ethical attitudes towards human capital, which are the triple bottom line of sustainability. Conscious customers are the key to reshaping the fashion industry by shopping and supporting fashion brands that adopt sustainable practices. Thus, the purpose of this study is to extract the factors affecting the decision-making process of conscious customers in selecting fashion brands adopting ethical and sustainable implementations, to present a case study covering alternative fashion brands, and to evaluate them in terms of sustainability measures. A bibliometric analysis is conducted within the scope of this research to address the most suitable and original decision-making technique; hence, a novel neutrosophic set-based ORESTE approach is proposed to rank the alternative brands. Next, after reaching the case study findings, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to illustrate the parameter changes’ impact on the result in order to validate the findings’ outcomes. Thus, this paper contributes to the literature by proposing a novel approach as an alternative to Besson ranking, extracting sustainable and ethical fashion practices of brands, and identifying the related reports and websites as references to measure sustainability in the fashion industry. The practitioners and managers can comprehend the factors to be taken into consideration by assessing the sustainability status of the particular fashion enterprises and can examine their positions in the global market within their competitors. Full article

The paper is based on the crucial value of food as “a condensed social fact”. The analysis focuses on food narratives, responsible consumption, battles for the food emancipation of subaltern and low-income subjects, and attention to the quality, fairness, and traceability of food products as an expression of individual agency, as well as an expression of public engagement with food democracy/citizenship conflicts and frictions. Preliminarily, the paper moves from a discussion of collective agency on food strategies and representations to a critical approach to food democracy and sustainable society. This public arena for food debates is then confronted with personal behaviors embodying food citizenship in the contemporary scenario of socio-economic and environmental transition. The paper addresses the following sustainable development goals: responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), ending hunger, food security, improved nutrition, sustainable agriculture (SDG 2), and health and well-being (SDG 3). Starting from the democratic/neoliberal dichotomy, the paper will consider food governmentality as a positive alternative to food emancipation and democracy, as well as a personal need and a neo-communitarian political approach opposed to agroindustry and food consumerism and dispossession. Three case studies, all situated in the central–southern Italian region of Molise, will discuss different models of food citizenship and governmentality, as well as the relationship between individual responsibility and desires and collective commitment and perspectives. These issues will be framed within a rural economy paradigm and articulated through an ethnographic methodology: local data collection, emic/ethic representations, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups. This long-term observation has been realized in the framework of several projects that were coordinated and developed by the authors, who worked for several years in the regional territory, especially on projects focusing on local/regional/national policies of sustainable rural development and bio-cultural heritage conservation and valorization according to the mission of the research center, which they founded and coordinated over the last seven years. The case studies and discussion allow for some final consideration of the impact of individual and community agencies on the achievement of SDGs, the presence of not exclusively consumeristic and hedonistic behaviors, and the growing attention to ecological concerns being paid food producers and distributors, as well as new forms of rural–urban circularity and entanglements aiming toward greater awareness and democratization of food access, security, and sustainable agriculture. Full article

The global demand for food is expected to double by 2050, and trends of healthy eating and ethical consumerism are driving the innovation and consumption trends. Moreover, sustainability messaging is particularly relevant in the seafood category. There will be increasing pressure to reduce marine ingredients in aquafeeds to protect ecosystems at risk and replace them with a wide range of alternatives that include plant sources, invertebrates, microbial biomass, algae, and also agrifood byproducts that may simultaneously contribute towards a circular economy concept. However, the nutritional and functional value of each new feed ingredient has to be thoroughly evaluated to assure good growth and prevent major impacts on fish health status, flesh nutritional value, and safety. A holistic approach towards sustainable farming has to be tackled by addressing the One Health approach envisaging (a) the protection of the environment by improved feed utilization reducing the loss of nutrients into the water; (b) an increased production of robust fish able to cope with global challenges; (c) an increased contribution with safe and healthier food items for consumers, especially for sensitive populations such as elderly people, pregnant women, and children. Aquaculture needs to respond to consumer expectations, positioning itself as a true superfood with a prominent place in protein, healthy, and “clean” diets and improve its perception and image among consumers. Full article

Hard economic times have been considered obstacles for environmental activism by many environmental scholars, yet works, mostly based on case studies, on alternative action organizations (AAOs) during times of increasing livelihood vulnerability show considerable environmental activism. We explain this inconsistency by arguing that AAOs mobilizing at times of crisis opt for direct action, using strategies of citizens’ solidarity initiatives centering on meeting basic needs and sustainability goals and thereby carry on the environmental claim-making in a new way. To this end, we compare environmental AAOs (EAAOs) with non-environmental ones using a cross-national dataset of 4157 hubs-retrieved AAOs active during the economic crisis (2007–2016), in France, Greece, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. Given that EAAOs constitute more than one-third of all AAOs, it is clear that environmental protection or sustainable development are not neglected even at times of economic hardships. Instead, the crisis provides an opportunity to broaden the scope of action for existing organizations that can adopt sustainability activities focusing on alternative practices and lifestyles, improving societal resilience. We further show that EAAOs tend to be informal and, to an extent, more concentrated on contention and protests than non-environmental organizations. Full article

The term “Anthropocene Syndrome” describes the wicked interrelated challenges of our time. These include, but are not limited to, unacceptable poverty (of both income and opportunity), grotesque biodiversity losses, climate change, environmental degradation, resource depletion, the global burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), health inequalities, social injustices, the spread of ultra-processed foods, consumerism and incivility in tandem with a diminished emphasis on the greater potential of humankind, efforts toward unity, or the value of fulfilment and flourishing of all humankind. Planetary health is a concept that recognizes the interdependent vitality of all natural and anthropogenic ecosystems—social, political and otherwise; it blurs the artificial lines between health at scales of person, place and planet. Promoting planetary health requires addressing the underlying pathology of “Anthropocene Syndrome” and the deeper value systems and power dynamics that promote its various signs and symptoms. Here, we focus on misinformation as a toxin that maintains the syndromic status quo—rapid dissemination of falsehoods and dark conspiracies on social media, fake news, alternative facts and medical misinformation described by the World Health Organization as an “infodemic”. In the context of planetary health, we explore the historical antecedents of this “infodemic” and underscore an urgent need to remediate the misinformation mess. It is our contention that education (especially in early life) emphasizing mindfulness and understanding of the mechanisms by which propaganda is spread (and unhealthy products are marketed) is essential. We expand the discourse on positive social contagion and argue that empowerment through education can help lead to an information transformation with the aim of flourishing along every link in the person, place and planet continuum. Full article

In the cosmetic sector, natural and sustainable products with a high compatibility with skin, thus conjugating wellness with a green-oriented consumerism, are required by the market. Poly(hydroxyalkanoate) (PHA)/starch blends represent a promising alternative to prepare flexible films as support for innovative beauty masks, wearable after wetting and releasing starch and other selected molecules. Nevertheless, preparing these films by extrusion is difficult due to the high viscosity of the polymer melt at the temperature suitable for processing starch. The preparation of blends including poly(butylene succinate-co-adipate) (PBSA) or poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) was investigated as a strategy to better modulate melt viscosity in view of a possible industrial production of beauty mask films. The release properties of films in water, connected to their morphology, was also investigated by extraction trials, infrared spectroscopy and stereo and electron microscopy. Then, the biocompatibility with cells was assessed by considering both mesenchymal stromal cells and keratinocytes. All the results were discussed considering the morphology of the films. This study evidenced the possibility of modulating thanks to the selection of composition and the materials processing of the properties necessary for producing films with tailored properties and processability for beauty masks. Full article

As a manifestation of sustainability, self-organizing communities (SOCs) have been proven to be increasingly related to the environmental issues and living space crisis in the urban areas. Many social groups regard self-organizing communities as an ideal alternative to the problems of rapid urbanization since they challenge unsustainable materialism and consumerism. To penetrate this idea into a wider range of socio-cultural, economic, and political activities, such communities are moving towards becoming economically cooperative social entities and are usually characterized by small scale, co-construction, and co-creation. Community studies further point out that contemporary communities are somewhat decentralized, giving members a good sustainable mix of freedom and togetherness. This means that, compared to traditional communes, individualized differences within self-organizing communities are more prominent. They are susceptible to different cultural and political contexts, which have received little attention from Chinese scholars. To fill this gap, this study adopts ethnographic approaches to explore the lifestyle experiments of a self-organizing community (AnotherLand) in South China. It reviews the difficulties associated with identifying and characterizing SOCs. It examines how this self-organizing community maintains its sustainability by experimenting with specific lifestyles (internal factors) and building extensive social networks (external factors). It further suggests that sustainability should be taken as an essential conceptual framework for embodying the success or failure of self-organizing communities. Full article

The administration of antibiotics in aquaculture has raised concern about the impact of their overuse in marine ecosystems, seafood safety and consumers’ health. This “green consumerism” has forced researchers to find new alternatives against fish pathogens. The present study focused on 12 Mediterranean medicinal-aromatic plants as potential antimicrobials and antioxidant agents that could be used in fish aquaculture. In vitro assays showed that the essential oils (EOs) from all studied plants had anti-bacterial and antioxidant properties, with their efficacy being dependent on their chemical composition. More specifically, EOs rich in carvacrol, p-cymene and γ-terpinene exhibited not only the strongest inhibitory activity against the growth of bacterial pathogens (inhibitory concentration: 26–88 μg mL⁻¹), but also the greatest total antioxidant capacity (ABTS: 2591–5879 μmole mL⁻¹; CUPRAC: 931–2733 μmole mL⁻¹). These compounds were mainly found in the EOs from Greek oregano (Origanum vulgare subsp. hirtum), Spanish oregano (Thymbra capitata) and savoury (Satureja thymbra) collected from cultivations in Greece. The specific EOs stand out as promising candidates for the treatment of bacterial diseases and oxidative stress in farmed fish. Further in vivo experiments are needed to fully understand the effects of EO dietary supplementation on fish farming processes. Full article

Wearables are devices worn on the human body and are able to measure various health parameters, such as physical activity, energy expenditure and gait. With the advancement of technology, the general population are now spending more hours craning our necks and slouching over smartphones, tablets and computers, et cetera. Bodily posture is representative of physical and mental health. Poor posture can lead to spinal complications and the same can be said vice versa. As the standard of living increases, there is an increase in consumerism and the expectation to maintain such a lifestyle even in the aging population. Therefore, many are able to afford small luxuries in life, such as a piece of technology that could potentially improve their health in the long run. Wearable technology is a promising alternative to laboratory systems for movement and posture analysis. This article reviews commercial wearable devices with a focus on postural analysis. The clinical applicability of posture wearables, particularly in preventing, monitoring and treating spinal and musculoskeletal conditions, along with other purposes in healthcare, will be discussed. Full article