RFID-based material passport system in a recycled concrete circular chain

The construction industry urgently requires a resilient information system for effective coordination of data transmission among various stakeholders, including both the public and private sectors. Such an advanced digital solution would not only enhance transparency along the value chain but also improve both the quality of and confidence in...

Integrated synthesis, modeling, and assessment (iSMA) of waste-to-resource alternatives towards a circular economy: The case of the chemical recycling of plastic waste management

The need to transform economic models to implement a circular use of resources is crucial due to the current waste accumulation crisis. New waste-to-resource alternatives are constantly emerging to close material loops; therefore, tools are needed to identify the best synergies to upcycle waste. An approach has been developed to identify and...

Circularity in Practice: Review of Main Current Approaches and Strategic Propositions for an Efficient Circular Economy of Materials

This paper aims to summarize, propose, and discuss existing or emerging strategies to shift towards a circular economy of materials. To clarify the landscape of existing circular practices, a new spectrum is proposed, from product-based strategies, where entire products go through several life cycles without being reprocessed, to material-based...

Consumer acceptance of products made from recycled materials: A scoping review

Consumers have a positive attitude towards products made from recycled materials; however, they frequently end up not purchasing them. To shed light on the factors that influence consumer preferences and acceptance of products made from recycled materials, a scoping review was conducted with the following objectives: (1) to explore which...

Guidelines to Foster Consumer Acceptance of Products Made from Recycled Plastics

The circular economy can reduce the environmental footprint of today’s consumption and close the resource loop through circular material flows. Companies are encouraged to fol- low circular principles, such as using more recycled plastic materials. This initiative seems promising; however, it will only be successful if consumers are willing to...

Surgical waste reprocessing: Injection molding using recycled blue wrapping paper from the operating room

Introduction<br/>Hospitals in the Netherlands generate approximately 1.3 million kg of waste from the polypropylene (PP) wrapping paper (WP) used to wrap surgical instruments each year. The aim of this study was to develop a method to recycle WP waste into new medical devices.<br/><br/>Methods<br/>WP was recovered from Maasstad Hospital,...

A Circular Healthcare Economy; a feasibility study to reduce surgical stainless steel waste

The Circular Economy faces a growing interest. The aim of this study is to determine the feasibility of a circular approach towards reusing discarded hospital instruments and stainless steel waste. Secondary, this study aims to identify if any cost savings can be realized by following a circular instrument repair and recycling approach....

Circular economy of façades: Real-world challenges and opportunities

Reuse and high-value recycling have a pivotal role to play in reducing waste and minimising carbon emissions in the built environment. Design strategies for such recovery methods have yet to be fully established in the façade industry. Meanwhile, stringent regulations, aimed at reducing operational carbon emissions of buildings and improving...

Reprintable paste-based materials for additive manufacturing in a circular economy

The circular economy requires high-value material recovery to enable multiple product lifecycles. This implies the need for additive manufacturing to focus on the development and use of low-impact materials that, after product use, can be reconstituted to their original properties in terms of printability and functionality. We therefore...

Circular transition: Changes and responsibilities in the Dutch stony material supply chain

Recent literature has recognized the difficulty of implementing Circular Economy (CE) in supply chains. This has not yet led to a clear understanding of the reasons. This is critical to address, because the difficulty stalls the CE transition and suspends its benefits. Therefore, this paper investigates the reasons for the difficulty of...

A Geodesign Decision Support Environment for Integrating Management of Resource Flows in Spatial Planning

Improving waste and resource management entails working on interrelations between different material flows, territories and groups of actors. This calls for new decision support tools for translating the complex information on flows into accessible knowledge usable by stakeholders in the spatial planning process. This article describes an open...

Secondary Resources in the Bio-Based Economy: A Computer Assisted Survey of Value Pathways in Academic Literature

Research on value pathways for organic wastes has been steadily increasing in recent decades. There have been few considerably broad overview studies of such materials and their valuation potential in the bio-based economy in part because of the vast multitude of materials and processes that can be used to produce energy carriers, chemicals,...

Developments and challenges in design for sustainability of electronics

Sustainability of electronic products until recently mainly focused on improving the energy efficiency. Recently, resource efficiency has become of growing importance. Due to the use of relatively small amounts of many valuable and scarce materials, often intimately mixed, the design of electronic products deserves specific attention. From a...