Reassessing tin circularity and criticality

Tin is an important metal for society with a high risk of supply disruptions. It is, therefore, classified as a critical material in many parts of the world. An exception is the European Union, for which tin was classified as a non-critical material in 2023. However, there are many discrepancies in the literature regarding the definitions and...

Bio-based plastics in a circular economy: A review of recovery pathways and implications for product design

Bio-based plastics are attracting increasing attention due to their perceived sustainability and circularity. While enabling circularity by using renewable feedstocks, they still contribute to plastic pollution. Furthermore, their rapidly growing market will cause bio-based plastics to constitute significant fractions of plastic waste,...

Toward a low-carbon and circular building sector: Building strategies and urbanization pathways for the Netherlands

Buildings are an important part of society's environmental impacts, both in the construction and in the use phase. As the energy performance of buildings improve, construction materials become more important as a cause of environmental impact. Less attention has been given to those materials. We explore, as an alternative for conventional...

Design of a syringe extension device (Chloe SED®) for low-resource settings in sub-Saharan Africa: a circular economy approach

Underfunded healthcare infrastructures in low-resource settings in sub-Saharan Africa have resulted in a lack of medical devices crucial to provide healthcare for all. A representative example of this scenario is medical devices to administer paracervical blocks during gynaecological procedures. Devices needed for this procedure are usually...

Material intensity database for the Dutch building stock: Towards Big Data in material stock analysis

Re-use and recycling in the construction sector is essential to keep resource use in check. Data availability about the material contents of buildings is significant challenge for planning future re-use potentials. Compiling material intensity (MI) data is time and resource intensive. Often studies end up with only a handful of datapoints. In...