No abstract

Agriculture, one of the main economic pillars in Europe, plays a growing important role towards the environmental sustainability of the extra-urban land, in which the agricultural activities may proactively contribute to control and regulate the whole ecological conditions. Modern agriculture currently needs big quantities of agrochemicals, which are necessary for the growth and protection of crops and animals. These agrochemicals are commercially distributed to consumers in many types of containers. The most widely used packaging solutions usually employ plastic materials (e.g., containers for liquid pesticide; sacks for granular fertiliser; etc.). These materials, after the use of the agrochemical, need to be decontaminated, before being entrained in a recycling process, in the framework of a circular economy. In the present paper the main results coming from a EU-funded international project are reported, with specific reference to a pilot station that was realised in Italy with the aim to implement and test a codified system for the decontamination of these plastic containers for agrochemicals. The experimental tests were supported by relevant laboratory analysis, which have confirmed that the triple-rinsing decontamination procedure - traditionally employed by farmers for washing and decontaminating these containers - may be effective only under some well-defined conditions. Triple rinsing by farmers has indeed led to an only partial decontamination of the plastic containers, if farmers did not follow an appropriate triple-rinsing protocol, or did not triple-rinse the containers immediately after their emptying.

Plastic films used for crop protection have reached notable consumption all over Europe, as well as in the rest of the world. This phenomenon however poses a serious environmental problem connected with the impact on the sustainability of agricultural production and relevant plastic footprint. Mechanical recycling of agricultural plastics is a common technique, but limited by many factors, as the loss of mechanical properties of plastic film. This phenomenon, due to its ageing after being exposed to natural weather conditions, plays a crucial role, especially when aggravated by contamination with agrochemicals ordinarily used for crop health and pest management. This article reports the result of some laboratory tests on agricultural plastic film, artificially aged for different periods and contaminated with two different agrochemicals (anti-aphid or fungicide). These results show that the impact of agrochemicals on plastic film is considerable, since it worsens the ageing process of the plastic film, conducting a more rapid reduction in its mechanical properties—mostly, a faster reduction in the elongation at break below 50% of the corresponding value of the virgin plastic film. This phenomenon, other than reducing the working life of the plastic film, gives it a low potential for being transformed into a closed-loop recycled material when entering the recycling stage. The increase in the value of the detected Carbonyl Index (CI) confirms the tendency of the material to degrade rapidly when in contact with agrochemicals, hence indicating that it may be impossible to mechanically recycle it.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is growing in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry. With the new strategy to mandate BIM, there is a need to identify its importance in architectural landscape design. It has the potential to challenge some of the limitations of designing, constructing and managing the built environment. Using BIM tools and applications, landscape analysis can be explored, developed and documented for design, planning and organization as well. This application, known as Landscape Information Modelling (LIM), may store object information such as: irrigation pipelines; areas allocated to specific plants; list of different plants involved in landscape projects; etc. Annotations used in landscape drawings would be accompanied by information attached to it. In this paper, a first application of LIM aimed to landscape protection has been implemented, so as to help in planning leisure facilities. Indeed, with many details involved, it can also be used to store data for landscape architects, who would easily develop and organize detailed information. Hence, with the ability for simulation and visualization, they should be able to produce detailed plans, walkthrough animations and renderings for presentation, while exploring the scope and nature of work and making informed decision at early design stages.