Integrated regional waste management to minimise the environmental footprints in circular economy transition

Fan, Yee Van; Jiang, Peng; Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír; Liew, Peng Yen; Lee, Chew Tin

doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105292

Cited by 48 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…The strategy design of medical products under the Circular Economy was overviewed by Kane et al [ 178 ], through which challenges and opportunities in the medical sector in terms of the circular design were investigated. The “10R rules” of the Circular Economy strategy in waste management [ 179 ] may provide insights to improve the Circular Economy practices in the medical sector.…”

Section: Lessons and Opportunities For Future Pandemicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 pandemics Stage II – Energy and environmental impacts of vaccination

Klemeš

Jiang

Fan

et al. 2021

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

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The COVID-19 pandemic developed the severest public health event in recent history. The first stage for defence has already been documented. This paper moves forward to contribute to the second stage for offensive by assessing the energy and environmental impacts related to vaccination. The vaccination campaign is a multidisciplinary topic incorporating policies, population behaviour, planning, manufacturing, materials supporting, cold-chain logistics and waste treatment. The vaccination for pandemic control in the current phase is prioritised over other decisions, including energy and environmental issues. This study documents that vaccination should be implemented in maximum sustainable ways. The energy and related emissions of a single vaccination are not massive; however, the vast numbers related to the worldwide production, logistics, disinfection, implementation and waste treatment are reaching significant figures. The preliminary assessment indicates that the energy is at the scale of ~1.08 × 10 10 kWh and related emissions of ~5.13 × 10 12 gCO 2eq when embedding for the envisaged 1.56 × 10 10 vaccine doses. The cold supply chain is estimated to constitute 69.8% of energy consumption of the vaccination life cycle, with an interval of 26–99% depending on haul distance. A sustainable supply chain model that responds to an emergency arrangement, considering equality as well, should be emphasised to mitigate vaccination's environmental footprint. This effort plays a critical role in preparing for future pandemics, both environmentally and socially. Research in exploring sustainable single-use or reusable materials is also suggested to be a part of the plans. Diversified options could offer higher flexibility in mitigating environmental footprint even during the emergency and minimise the potential impact of material disruption or dependency.

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Section: Lessons and Opportunities For Future Pandemicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 pandemics Stage II – Energy and environmental impacts of vaccination

Klemeš

Jiang

Fan

et al. 2021

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

Self Cite

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“…These works focus on subsets of the pattern for "reduce-reuse-recycle-replace." That is aggravated by often low landfilling fees that discourage the investment in CE solutions, making circular solutions more expensive than landfilling [38].…”

Section: Research Gaps In the Area Of Textile Materials And The Potential Role Of Exergy Footprintmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(a) The need for comprehensive circularity; the 10R [38] is apparent. (b) The global picture and circularity goals in industrial and business processes have been discussed and analysed [38].…”

Section: Research Gaps In the Area Of Textile Materials And The Potential Role Of Exergy Footprintmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exergy Footprint Assessment of Cotton Textile Recycling to Polyethylene

et al. 2021

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Circular economy implementations tend to decrease the human pressure on the environment, but not all produce footprint reductions. That observation brings the need for tools for the evaluation of recycling processes. Based on the Exergy Footprint concept, the presented work formulates a procedure for its application to industrial chemical recycling processes. It illustrates its application in the example of cotton waste recycling. This includes the evaluation of the entire process chain of polyethylene synthesis by recycling cotton waste. The chemical recycling stages are identified and used to construct the entire flowsheet that eliminates the cotton waste and its footprints at the expense of additional exergy input. The exergy performance of the process is evaluated. The identified exergy assets and liabilities are 138 MJ/kg ethylene and 153 MJ/kg ethylene, reducing the Exergy Footprint by 75% and the greenhouse gas footprint by 43% compared to the linear pattern of polyethylene production. The exergy requirements for producing raw cotton constitute a large fraction of the liabilities, while the polyethylene degradation provides the main asset in the reduction of the Exergy Footprint.

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“…Sustainable waste management plays an important role in transitioning from a linear economy (Fan et al 2021) to a circular economy (MacArthur 2013). Circular economy receives great attention in the EU, where the Circular Economy Action Plan (European Union 2020) was established in 2020, confirming the intention of halving municipal waste by 2030.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demographic and socio-economic factors including sustainability related indexes in waste generation and recovery

Fan

Klemeš

Lee

et al. 2021

Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmenta

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There has been plenty of research on the influence of various socio-economic and demographic data on waste generation to develop effective and targeted waste reduction measures, including energy recovery. This study evaluates the relationship between the waste generation and Circular Material Use rate, Environmental Tax Revenue, and Global Innovation Index beyond the typical socio-economic factors (e.g., gross domestic product or population). Correlation analysis is conducted on the EU-27 datasets before the development of the predictive model. The correlation strength between the factors is discussed to identify the potential rebound effect from the central driver of economic growth and development. A positive correlation and partial rebound effect are identified in the data. The waste amount ending in disposal and energy recovery treatment increases with the Circular Material Use rate, suggesting that the expected gains from Circular Material Use rate are offset by other socio-economic factors such as increasing population or gross domestic product. However, a diminishing trend is observed in the rebound effect over the years. Multiple linear regression with validation is applied to identify the best fit model for predicting waste generation. Using population, gross domestic product, Circular Material Use rate, and Environmental Tax Revenues as independent variables, a model is generated with a mean absolute percentage error of 18.65% (7% lower than the benchmark) and R 2 (coefficient of determination) of 0.995.

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Integrated regional waste management to minimise the environmental footprints in circular economy transition

Cited by 48 publications

References 48 publications

COVID-19 pandemics Stage II – Energy and environmental impacts of vaccination

COVID-19 pandemics Stage II – Energy and environmental impacts of vaccination

Exergy Footprint Assessment of Cotton Textile Recycling to Polyethylene

Demographic and socio-economic factors including sustainability related indexes in waste generation and recovery

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