Food waste in the supply chain is a big issue because it causes an unnecessary environmental impact, costs to the sector and consumers, as well as costs for waste treatment. Besides, it is a missed opportunity to feed people suffering from hunger. Calculations show that approximately 30% of all world food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted at some stage of the food supply chain, with the retail sector being responsible for approximately 5% of losses in developed countries. Several studies on food waste and losses have been performed in the international and national perspectives. These studies mostly give an overall food chain perspective and do not provide detailed information about food waste in specific stages or locations. The retail sector is one of the actors of the supply chain where there is still a gap in data and information regarding the state of the problem of food waste, especially in the Central and Eastern European region. The number of currently conducted studies regarding amounts of retail food waste, its types, causes and methods of waste minimization is limited or hindered by poor data resolution, because most retailers do not publicize the information about the quantities of wastes and their treatment. Therefore, a better understanding of food wastage within retail stores is necessary in order to assess the actual scale of the problem and to determine efficient waste prevention measures.This work aims at food losses assessment in the Lithuanian retail sector, as well as discussion and comparison of the root causes of food waste generation with the neighbouring countries in North Europe, in order to facilitate food waste prevention measures. Semi-structured questionnaire survey was chosen as a data collection method as it allowed for collection of comprehensive and comparable information on food losses in a relatively short time. The data were collected at 21 retail stores, which belong to 3 biggest retail chains in Lithuania. For the comparative study, available literature on food waste assessment and prevention practices in Nordic countries was analyzed.

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Electric mobility is promoted as a future transport option that has environmental and economic benefits and encourages sustainable urban transportation. The aim of this study is to reveal the changes in environmental and economic performance if we switched from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to battery electric (BEV) or hybrid electric (HEV) vehicles. Therefore, this research presents a comparative environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) from the Cradle-to-Grave perspective of the vehicles and a Well-to-Wheel analysis of their fuel supply. Moreover, an LCA of a BEV was performed under diverse electricity mix scenarios, which are forecasted for 2015–2050 in Lithuania. From an economic point of view, a life cycle costing was conducted for the same vehicles to estimate the economic impacts over the vehicle life cycles under Lithuanian conditions. The results show that ICEV-petrol contributes the major environmental damage in all damage categories. BEVs with the electricity mix of 2020–2050 scenarios, which are composed mainly of renewable energy sources, provide the least environmental impact. The economic results reveal that BEV and ICEV-diesel are the most cost-efficient vehicles, with the total consumer life cycle costs of approximately 5% and 15% less than ICEV-petrol and HEV, respectively.

A chemical and ecotoxicological assessment of treatment of wastewater that had been polluted with petroleum products using only Activated Sludge (AS) and four biologically activated sorbents (BASs), consisting of activated sludge plus: coal-based activated carbon (-C1), coconut shell-based activated carbon (-C2), zeolite (-Z), and anthracite (-A) were conducted. The efficiency and robustness of the four wastewater treatment systems were evaluated by calculating the reduced total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contents and the acute ecotoxicity of the effluents. The chemical analysis showed that the combined treatment systems were very effective for reducing the total petroleum hydrocarbon and readily bioavailable PAH contents. The most efficient systems were the BAS-C1 and -C2, which removed 60-88% and 99.5-99.6% of TPH and PAH, respectively. The activated sludge-only treatment was the least effective for purifying the wastewater. Chemical oxygen demand was reduced by >90% by all carbon-based BASs (BAS-C1, BAS-C2 and BAS-A). Shifts in the relative composition of the individual PAHs were identified in samples taken before and after treatment. Algal and bacterial bioassays showed that the toxicities of effluents following treatment by all four systems (except AS for algae) were reduced by more than 80% and 90%, respectively. However, crustacean tests indicated that the carbon-based BASs reduced the toxicity [V tox(50) ] only by 19-67%. Our results indicated that the combination of sorption and biodegradation processes have great potential in the treatment of petroleum products polluted wastewater and is less sensitive for inhibitors of the biological process than treatments in which activated sludge alone is used. The assessment of chemical and ecotoxicological endpoints provided valuable information, but contrasting results for one of the assays indicates that further analysis on the capacity of the different treatment systems is warranted.