Circular economy comes to break the linear resource to waste economy, by introducing different strategies, two of them being: using material from renewable sources and producing biodegradable products. The present work aims at developing polylactic acid (PLA), typically made from fermented plant starch, and polycaprolactone (PCL) blends, a biodegradable polyester, to study their potential to be used as substitutes of oil-based commodity plastics. For this, PLA/PCL blends were compounded in a batch and lab scale internal mixer and processed by means of injection molding. Tensile and impact characteristics were determined and compared to different thermoplastic materials, such as polypropylene, high density polyethylene, polystyrene, and others. It has been found that the incorporation of PCL into a PLA matrix can lead to materials in the range of 18.25 to 63.13 megapascals of tensile strength, 0.56 to 3.82 gigapascals of Young’s modulus, 12.65 to 3.27 percent of strain at maximum strength, and 35 to 2 kJ/m2 of notched impact strength. The evolution of the tensile strength fitted the Voigt and Reuss model, while Young’s modulus was successfully described by the rule of mixtures. Toughness of PLA was significantly improved with the incorporation of PCL, significantly increasing the energy required to fracture the specimens. Blends containing more than 20 wt% of PCL did not break when unnotched specimens were tested. Overall, it was found that the obtained PLA/PCL blends can constitute a strong and environmentally friendly alternative to oil-based commodity materials.

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Bioenergy villages can be defined as villages, municipalities, settlements or communities, which produce and use most of their energy from local bioenergy and other renewable energy sources. A bioenergy village approach has not been applied in Macedonia yet, and it is at a nascent stage of implementation in other South-Eastern European countries. This work aims to integrate a techno-economic, social and environmental assessment and an implementation strategy into a bioenergy village concept, which is not often seen in works dedicated to bioenergy villages and biomass based heating systems. The assessment was conducted by means of energy audit and project-related tools, whilst the strategy was composed by bioenergy working group meetings. Results show that a biomass based district heating system is a more attractive solution for heating several public buildings instead of a fossil fuelled system, with numerous associated benefits. Such concepts can be replicated with variety of renewables, thus contributing to sustainable development pathways of small communities.

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