Use of solid recovered fuel (SRF) in cement industry: Economic and environmental implications

Identifying the challenges of implementing a European bioeconomy based on forest resources: Reality demands circularity

“…Next to come was the 2002 EU bioeconomy strategy with the title "Lifesciences and Biotechnology: a strategy for Europe", prioritising life science and biotechnology as probably the most promising of the frontier technologies, with a capacity to contribute to the achievement of the Lisbon Agenda objectives and in 2005 the 'knowledge-based bioeconomy' (KBBE) was finally established [23,25]. In February 2012, the Euro-pean Commission published an action plan of bioeco-nomic development entitled, "Innovating for Sustainable Growth: a bioeconomy for Europe" [17], in which bioeconomy was portrayed as an environmentally acceptable solution to a variety of European and global problems, and in that way 'bioeconomy' became a central element of the EU's political agenda, following the same trend at that time in the United States [16], [26].…”

“…Over the last years, several strategies have been set forth for establishing more sustainable production patterns, and reduction of solid waste and appropriate use and reuse of natural resources using the circular economy strategy, e.g. European Commission, 2015 [17,51]. For example, the Cascade circular economy is based on implementation of closed material loops in utilisation of available resources within larger loops, thus making continuous use of materials and then the wastes so long as products can be created [14,54].…”

“…as outlined in European Commission, 2015 [9,45,48]. This is important for designing processes that utilise concepts of closed loops that can benefit from the highest valueadded products with lowest energy consumption for the available resources [17,24,61].…”

“…Advantages of low weight result in low carbon emissions in products and transport relative to other materials, whilst at the same time they bring high material strength and stiffness exceeding that of many metals, Fig. 5, [17,54]. Implementation of cellulosic nanomaterials can in principle displace non-renewable materials with wideranging opportunities for nanocomposites with renewable minerals, such as calcium carbonate, in packaging, automobile manufacture, coatings, films, component housings etc.…”

“…These changes introduce a whole new range of products into the forestry sector existing beside traditional wood products, such as plywood, pulp, paper, board and tissue [15,16]. New technologies have already enabled production of novel materials such as nanocellulose, man-made cellulose fibres and importantly fibre reconstruction from cellulose waste [17,18], The method used by the actors in the field for conducting the relevant analyses mainly follows the Delphi approach for data collection as an appropriate means of long-range (20-30 years) academic research, together with expert opinions conducted in respect to development of bioeconomy and bio-based materials within the EU [20]. A change from fossil-based industrial activity to bioeconomy has been defined in many EU bioeconomy policies, which have followed the developing decline in the forestry sector and recognition of the social acceptance of appreciating long term environmental consequences [6,15].…”