CO-DESIGN FOR A CIRCULAR APPROACH IN GREEN TECHNOLOGIES: ADAPTATION OF REUSED BUILDING MATERIAL AS GROWING SUBSTRATE FOR SOILLESS CULTIVATION OF LETTUCE (Lactuca sativa var. capitata)

Abstract

Improving the awareness of the responsibility of our actions is the basis of achieving the ambitious aim of waste management and prevention established by the European Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/CE and the most recent Circular Economy Package. Circular Economy is connected both to improve manufacturing technologies and also educate people towards responsible consumption and waste reduction. Due to its educational and institutional role, universities provide a context to rethink not only at our technological system through the adoption of eco-innovation, but also to reconsider the entire system of our values through the education of the society in many aspects of sustainability. Most sustainability education courses cogenerate knowledge in an explorative way through inter-and trans-disciplinary methodologies. A Living-lab of sustainability called Terracini in Transizione is ongoing at the School of Engineering and Architecture of University of Bologna. This Livinglab offers new opportunities and useful feedback to research and teaching, as well as contributing to the engagement of engineering students. As a result of the Living-lab, various experimental green technologies for Urban Resilience have been codesigned by students, researchers and professors. In order to strengthen the sustainability of the proposed solutions, some of them are being constructed using recycled materials. The aim is to close the cycle of utilized materials, and the hereby presented experiment focuses on testing the water and rooting capacity of innovative recycled materials as substrates for edible plants cultivation in innovative green technologies (e.g. soilless cultivation). Tested substrates include a control (mix of perlitevermiculite) and recycled substrates, either made of crushed plasterboard panels, synthetic wadding or panels of rockwool. The present study addresses the definition of the hydraulic properties of the substrates and their effect on the yield of hydroponically grown lettuce (Lactuca sativa).

The Differences across Future Teachers Regarding Attitudes on Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development

“…In relation to this, it is clear that the educational context has an increasingly greater impact on individuals engaging in more actions in formal, informal, and non-formal contexts. University students still require educational interventions that enable them to act as those responsible for SD [24,56,64,66]. This was revealed in the present research study, with greater quality and quantity of school training being evident amongst PES than ECES, with the latter having attended a reduced number of conferences, seminars, and workshops.…”

“…In case we, as individuals, should make our personal contribution as those responsible for the environment, we could be supported by institutions and companies through pro-environmental changes to the practices of the aforementioned social groups, which will, at the same time, facilitate the functioning of society in an individual way [14,23,26,83]. As already indicated by other authors, norms developed through environmental and educational policies favour environmentally friendly skills and actions in each and every one of us [24,25].…”

“…Likewise, an individual may also act to promote Corporate Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development (CSRSD) as a member of a company, which could contribute to the well-being of society [19]. Their responsibility as agents of pro-environmental social change is centred on decision making and the implementation of economic actions, which are mainly influenced by the most sustainable ones, such as a common good economy, fair trade, or circular economy, with the capacity to address products to an ethical consumer, to a greater or lesser extent [17,[20][21][22][23][24]; all this is based on the creation of a European ethical market [25]. Therefore, companies would be able to offer more sustainable products, and as a result, favour specific consumption trends [13,14,17,26].…”

A literature review on circular economy adoption in the manufacturing sector

“…Recycling (Ali et al, 2019); (Kuo et al, 2019); (Bendikiene et al, 2019); (Hasegawa et al, 2019); (Rodgers et al, 2019); (Byard et al, 2019); (Reich et al, 2019); (Tan and Guo, 2019); (Jensen, 2019); (Charnley, F., Tiwari, D., Hutabarat, W., Moreno, M., Okorie, O., Tiwari, 2019); (Romeo, 2019); (Stropnik et al, 2018); (Banguera et al, 2018a); (Aubrey L. ; (Bobba et al, 2018); (Aubrey L ; (Coughlan et al, 2018); (Bradley et al, 2018); (Wanassi et al, 2018); (Fujii and Kondo, 2018); (Sauerwein and Doubrovski, 2018); (Clemon and Zohdi, 2018); (Zhong and Pearce, 2018a); (Minunno et al, 2018); (Atlason et al, 2017); (Helmer Pedersen and Conti, 2017); (Testa et al, 2017); (Rizzo et al, 2017); (Zhou et al, 2017); (Ingarao, 2017); (Jensen and Remmen, 2017); (Alvarez-de-los-Mozos and Renteria, 2017); (M et al, 2017); (Câmpean et al, 2017); (O'Connor et al, 2016); (Broadbent, 2016); (Karayannis, 2016); (Shahbazi et al, 2016); (Tsiliyannis, 2016); (Cucchiella et al, 2015); (Smol et al, 2015);…”

“…Concerning technologies supporting the physical implementation of CE (see block 2.4 of Figure 2), in the extant literature are reported technologies enabling green and cleaner production (Bhandari et al, 2019;Rizzo et al, 2017), but also digital technologies for material efficiency (Neligan, 2018), and waste management. Within this latter type, Lahtela and Kärki, (2018) studied how sorting technologies support the adoption of waste manegement strategy, and Swain and Lee, (2019) investigated technologies used to separate and analyze waste to enable waste reintroduction as a new resource in the cycle.…”