Mechanical and Thermal Characterization of Multiprocessed PHBs© Lehrstuhl fĂĽr Abfallverwertungstechnik und Abfallwirtschaft der Montanuniversität Leoben (11/2022)
As our society is becoming more conscious and responsible collectively, EU guidelines on the Circular Economy were developed to help companies to practice the same in their industries. Bioplastics as an alternative feedstock are gaining traction as shown by the bioplastics market projection, expecting growth in production capacities from 2.41 million tonnes in 2021 to 7.59 million tonnes by 2026. (European Bioplastics e.V. 2021).
Sustainability & Circular Economy at voestalpine High Performance
Metals Division© Lehrstuhl fĂĽr Abfallverwertungstechnik und Abfallwirtschaft der Montanuniversität Leoben (11/2022)
Sustainability is a focus topic in the High Performance Metals (HPM) Division of the voestalpine group. Within inSPire, our sustainability framework, we are setting goals for sustainable production and reducing our carbon footprints. Circular economy is an important divisional strategic field for two years now and deals with 4 fields of action: Alternative raw material sources, Recycling of by-products, Material & scrap cycles and Zero waste. Two challenges concerning the recycling of by-products are presented in this article to show the difficulties we face when we want to recover alloy elements from our production wastes: EAF-dusts and scales. Valuable elements are lost by landfill or downcycling. Finding solutions for these challenges is part of our focus on Circular Economy in the High Performance Metals Division.
Process Digitization in Waste Management – An Operational Way of
Breaking the Cycle© Lehrstuhl fĂĽr Abfallverwertungstechnik und Abfallwirtschaft der Montanuniversität Leoben (11/2022)
Recycling 4.0 (circular and smart) is not a myth, but structurally as well as operationally still far away from its name-giving politico-economic movement Industry 4.0. Furthermore, there exist different operational approaches under this synonym and it is yet hard to discover which will lead
our waste management into a “real” circular economy.
The circular packaging design guideline and holistic sustainability assessment in circular economy© Lehrstuhl fĂĽr Abfallverwertungstechnik und Abfallwirtschaft der Montanuniversität Leoben (11/2020)
The FH Campus Wien Circular Packaging Design Guideline provide recommendations for circular design for the whole supply chain. Circular design is a necessary prerequisite to achieve the goals of the European Circular Economy Package which requires full recyclability of packaging by 2030. Circular packaging should re-duce resource consumption and environmental impacts of packaging. The assessment of packaging sustainability requires the calculation of direct and indirect environmental impacts and circularity at the same time. A method for holistic sustainability assessment of packaging has been proposed by FH Campus Wien and developed in an ECR-working group (Efficient Consumer Response) with the participation of a number of companies along the whole supply chain (brand owners, retailers, packaging manufacturers and packaging systems).
Environmental-economic impact assessment of business models in the Austrian waste economy© Lehrstuhl fĂĽr Abfallverwertungstechnik und Abfallwirtschaft der Montanuniversität Leoben (11/2020)
The dynamic macroeconomic one-region and multi-sector model WIFO.DYNK (dynamic new-Keynesian) was adapted to model the employment and value-added impacts of the Austrian waste economy in this respect. It is based on the most recent input-output tables of Statistics Austria.
Reporting of food waste in the EU – Results of current estimates in Germany© Lehrstuhl fĂĽr Abfallverwertungstechnik und Abfallwirtschaft der Montanuniversität Leoben (11/2020)
In February 2019, the German Federal Cabinet adopted the 'National Strategy for Reducing Food Waste', setting a framework for the future direction of this initiative. Among other things, it stipulated that an inter-ministerial "Indicator 12.3 Working Group" should prepare the data bases and methods for nationwide balancing of food waste generation (baseline). Based on existing 2015 data, this status quo analysis will be used as a starting point to agree on milestones for the respective sectors.
Applicability of multivariate data analysis to improve the sorting degree of recycled polyethylene© Lehrstuhl fĂĽr Abfallverwertungstechnik und Abfallwirtschaft der Montanuniversität Leoben (11/2020)
The Circular Plastic Alliance Declaration of the European Commission targets the us-age of 10 million tons of recycled plastic per year into new plastic products in Europe by 2025 (European Commission 9/20/2019). To assist this objective this work focuses on the improvement of mechanical sorting of polyethylene (PE).
Enticing Consumers to Avoid Waste - Digital and Analogue Ways of Raising their Awareness© Lehrstuhl fĂĽr Abfallverwertungstechnik und Abfallwirtschaft der Montanuniversität Leoben (11/2018)
The top priority of waste management in accordance with the Austrian Waste Management Act is waste prevention (§ 1 (2) AWG), which takes place largely outside the waste regime. Still, it is a prime task of waste management authorities to encourage the actual actor, producers of goods and products and consumers, to engage in waste prevention.
Future Development of Waste Management in China According to the 13th Five-Year Plan© ThomĂ©-Kozmiensky Verlag GmbH (9/2016)
Municipal solid waste (MSW) known as trash or garbage consists of food waste, paper, cardboard, plastics, PET, glass, textiles, metals, wood and leather, nappies, slug, ash, etc. are arising from human and animal activities. The rapid development and urbanization of China have resulted in an increasing volume of MSW. So the problem of MSW management has become a major social problem, but one the other hand, because of their intrinsic properties, MSW are often reusable and may be considered a resource for energy recovery. The delivering quantity of household waste averages 179 million tons in China, and the amount of untreated MSW over the years has reached 7 billion tons.
Overview of the Waste Management Situation and Planning in Greece© ThomĂ©-Kozmiensky Verlag GmbH (9/2016)
Waste management has been recognized as one of the most pressing problems in Greece suffering of a low level of organization and relying predominantly on semi-controlled landfills until the end of the previous century [9]. Nevertheless improvements have been made during the last twenty years making the solid waste management in Greece a well-structured, organized and environmentally responsible activity with specific goals, mostly in the urban areas. However, there is a big need of changing the waste Management model. The development of efficient use of resources is the mean of realizing this vision. The transformation of the economy towards a resource-efficient direction will lead to increased competitiveness and new sources of growth and jobs through cost reduction through improved efficiency, commercialization of innovations and better management of resources throughout the duration of cycle life.