sustainability-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Waste Management Policy for Sustainable (Peri-)Urban Development and the Circular Economy

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Waste and Recycling".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 5 April 2024 | Viewed by 3842

Special Issue Editor

1. School of Environment, Geography and Applied Economics, Harokopio University (HUA), 17676 Kallithea, Attica, Greece
2. Department of Economic and Regional Development, Agricultural University of Athens (AUA), 33100 Amfissa, Greece
Interests: sustainable urban development; applied sustainability; circular economy; environmental management; waste management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Recent studies have provided strong evidence that the public's fundamental misunderstanding of waste reduction and prevention is a significant obstacle to promoting a critically needed circular economy in terms of waste reduction and reuse practices. Researchers, policymakers, and practitioners should educate metropolises’ consumers together to inspire them to go beyond recycling and make decisions that minimize the environmental effect of their initial purchases.

Amid the steady improvements at the EU—and beyond—governmental level on waste prevention and management, steps to bring down resource use and exploitation are vital. In this regard, the European Union (EU) has taken significant steps towards promoting a circular economy and reducing waste through its policies and strategies. The EU's Circular Economy Action Plan is a key component of the EU Green Deal, which sets out a comprehensive plan aimed at making the EU's economy sustainable and reducing its carbon footprint, with the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050.

Despite these efforts, there is still much work to be carried out to realize this “vision”. This Special Issue aims to reveal key insights about the public's waste prevention knowledge gaps and attitudes toward waste by putting together quantitative surveys, focus groups, ethnographic studies, waste compositional or life cycle analyses, multi-criteria decision-making approaches, and bibliographical reviews and analyses. By highlighting the EU's efforts in this area, we hope to spark a productive discussion and prompt urgent policy-wise action for circular economy and sustainable urban development through waste management and sustainable consumption among researchers, policy-makers, and behavior-change practitioners.

We invite all interested parties to debate and share evidence to take this evolving agenda forward. Together, we can work towards a more sustainable future for all.

References: 

  1. Vardopoulos, I.; Konstantopoulos, I.; Zorpas, A.A.; Limousi, L.; Bennici, S.; Inglezakis, V.; Voukkali, I. Sustainable metropolitan areas perspectives through assessment of the existing waste management strategies. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 2021, 28, 24305–24320. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-07930-1.
  2. Voukkali, I.; Loizia, P.; Navarro Pedreño, J.; Zorpas, A.A. Urban strategies evaluation for waste management in coastal areas in the framework of area metabolism. Waste Manag. Res. J. A Sustain. Circ. Econ. 2021, 39, 448–465. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242X20972773.
  3. Moustairas, I.; Vardopoulos, I.; Kavouras, S.; Salvati, L.; Zorpas, A.A. Exploring factors that affect public acceptance of establishing an urban environmental education and recycling center. Sustain. Chem. Pharm. 2022, 25, 100605. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scp.2022.100605.
  4. Rodríguez-Espinosa, T.; Navarro-Pedreño, J.; Gómez-Lucas, I.; Jordán-Vidal, M.M.; Bech-Borras, J.; Zorpas, A.A. Urban areas, human health and technosols for the green deal. Environ. Geochem. Health 2021, 43, 5065–5086. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-00953-8.
  5. Abeliotis, K.; Chroni, C.; Lasaridi, K.; Terzis, E.; Galliou, F.; Manios, T. Environmental impact assessment of a solar drying unit for the transformation of food waste into animal feed. Resources 2022, 11, 117. https://doi.org/10.3390/resources11120117.

Dr. Ioannis Vardopoulos
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • circular and bio-based economy
  • cross-disciplinary sustainable development
  • social assessment
  • solid waste
  • food waste
  • urban resilience

Published Papers (4 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Other

17 pages, 859 KiB  
Article
Can Internet Use Narrow the Gap between Farmers’ Willingness and Behavior in Waste Classification? Empirical Evidence from Rural Areas in Jiangsu Province, China
by Wenchao Cui, Yanjun Chen and Hengyuan Zeng
Sustainability 2024, 16(7), 2726; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16072726 - 26 Mar 2024
Viewed by 163
Abstract
Household waste classification and treatment are important for environmental protection and sustainable development. The Logit model is used to analyze differences in farmers’ willingness and behavior regarding waste classification based on data from the China Land Economic Survey. Key findings include the following: [...] Read more.
Household waste classification and treatment are important for environmental protection and sustainable development. The Logit model is used to analyze differences in farmers’ willingness and behavior regarding waste classification based on data from the China Land Economic Survey. Key findings include the following: (1) There is an evident discrepancy between waste classification willingness and action among rural residents. Despite nearly 90% of the sampled farmers expressing a willingness, nearly 40% do not practice waste classification. (2) Internet usage significantly reduces the discrepancy between farmers’ willingness and actual waste classification practices. This observation is valid even after robustness checks and endogeneity discussions. (3) There is a partial mediating effect between ecological awareness and knowledge perception on farmers’ willingness and behavior differences, which accounts for 12.9% and 52.6%, respectively, of the total impact. Notably, institutional limitations amplify the negative influence of Internet use on this discrepancy. (4) According to heterogeneity analysis, Internet use has a greater negative impact on farmers’ willingness and behavior in waste classification in suburban villages and villages with environmental governance projects. This study proposes policy suggestions such as strengthening the construction of digital infrastructure in rural areas, enhancing the promotion and training of waste classification among farmers, and improving incentives and restraint mechanisms for rural household waste classification. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

26 pages, 1285 KiB  
Article
Sustainable Medical Waste Management Using an Intuitionistic Fuzzy-Based Decision Support System
by Konstantinos Kokkinos, Evangelia Lakioti, Konstantinos Moustakas, Constantinos Tsanaktsidis and Vayos Karayannis
Sustainability 2024, 16(1), 298; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16010298 - 28 Dec 2023
Viewed by 847
Abstract
The growing urban population and increased use of healthcare services have brought significant attention to the safe and sustainable management of medical waste. Selecting the proper technology in medical waste management (MWM) represents one of the most critical challenges for decision-makers to ensure [...] Read more.
The growing urban population and increased use of healthcare services have brought significant attention to the safe and sustainable management of medical waste. Selecting the proper technology in medical waste management (MWM) represents one of the most critical challenges for decision-makers to ensure public health. In order to evaluate and choose the best MWM methodology, the current research provides a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) strategy for a variety of social stakeholders, to compute criteria weights, decision-making weights, and alternative ranking algorithms. The suggested structure addresses uncertain assessments of alternatives by extending weighting and ranking methods to acquire the decision-making weight and rank the MWM alternatives based on uncertain conditions. It also uses ‘intuitionistic fuzzy’ linguistic variables to indicate criteria weights. To assess all the factors pertaining to the sustainability of MWM actions, this study suggests the creation of a decision support system (DSS). Our DSS is built upon a novel strategy that utilizes a collection of MCDM models that are grounded on contemporary intuitionistic fuzzy logic methodologies. Alternative scenarios have been assessed for the instance of Greece, after specialists in the healthcare management field imposed 17 criteria and sub-criteria. The IF-MCDM methodologies used were the Intuitionistic Fuzzy DEMATEL, TOPSIS, and CORPAS. The alternative scenarios ranged from the prioritizing of safety laws and regulations to public acceptance and awareness, with the handling of hazardous risks and transportation playing a crucial part in the process. All ensemble methods produced the same ranking of the alternatives, demonstrating that safety and risk avoidance is the most significant scenario for sustainable urban development and public health. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

18 pages, 3267 KiB  
Article
Evaluation of Biodegradability of Polylactic Acid and Compostable Bags from Food Waste under Industrial Composting
by Angeliki Maragkaki, Nikitas G. Malliaros, Ioannis Sampathianakis, Theofanis Lolos, Christos Tsompanidis and Thrassyvoulos Manios
Sustainability 2023, 15(22), 15963; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152215963 - 15 Nov 2023
Viewed by 1423
Abstract
To reduce plastic pollution, biodegradable plastics have been introduced to the market to replace petroleum-based plastics. This work investigates the biodegradation/disintegration of pure poly-L-lactic acid (PLLAB2B), composed of food waste (FW), and PLLAB2B bags, under industrial composting conditions, in order [...] Read more.
To reduce plastic pollution, biodegradable plastics have been introduced to the market to replace petroleum-based plastics. This work investigates the biodegradation/disintegration of pure poly-L-lactic acid (PLLAB2B), composed of food waste (FW), and PLLAB2B bags, under industrial composting conditions, in order to determine whether they are compostable and to examine compost quality. In order to study the biodegradation, pure PLLAB2B was degraded in laboratory conditions and bag samples were put into simulation systems using windrow technology. Phytotoxicity tests were carried out for every compost sample and high germination values were found (97–103.8%). The pure PLLA reached an average biodegradation value of 100.2 ± 3.7% and a disintegration value of 100.0 ± 0.0%, resulting in biodegradable mature compost. After a seven week composting trial, the bag samples had fully decomposed. The samples had no influence on compost characteristics and there were no visually perceptible changes to the compost. Therefore, we suggest that food waste bioplastic can be used as a potential eco-material for compostable bags, one which could be used in industrial composting units and which offers degradable active materials with low environmental impact. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Other

Jump to: Research

8 pages, 419 KiB  
Brief Report
Investigation and Suggestions regarding Residents’ Understanding of Waste Classification in Chinese Prefecture-Level Cities—A Case Study of Maanshan City, Anhui Province, China
by Shangjie Ge-Zhang, Taoyang Cai, Zhitao Hu, Haotong Zhu, Pingxuan Mu and Jingang Cui
Sustainability 2023, 15(14), 11124; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151411124 - 17 Jul 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 706
Abstract
The implementation of waste-sorting policy is conducive to improving residents’ working and living environments, and has positive implications for promoting green development and building in China. As one of the main factors in the implementation of waste-sorting policy, residents’ awareness of and behavior [...] Read more.
The implementation of waste-sorting policy is conducive to improving residents’ working and living environments, and has positive implications for promoting green development and building in China. As one of the main factors in the implementation of waste-sorting policy, residents’ awareness of and behavior regarding waste sorting and disposal affects its promotion, while policies, incentives and infrastructure will affect residents’ enthusiasm for implementing waste sorting. Taking Maanshan City in Anhui Province as a case study, this paper discusses the current state of progress towards ecological civilization in China; the influence of policy promotion on residents’ perception of it; the correlation between residents’ age and their understanding of waste classification; and the correlation between residents’ enthusiasm, policies and green infrastructure; and puts forward some suggestions for how to enhance green infrastructure and improve residents’ perceptions of waste classification in the future. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop