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\"The understanding waste flow of a country is important to identify the main problems associated with waste management and identify opportunities in material flow management. A tool such as material flow analysis (MFA) is a widely used method in waste management studies, to provide a comprehensive analysis of material movements, support for material characterization analysis to identify the severity of a problem, identify the real root cause, and propose suitable management methods. This paper presents an application of MFA for municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Western provinces in Sri Lanka. The outcome includes the identification, and quantification of the main input and output flows of the system in the present context, from waste generation, collection, unaccounted and unidentified flows, material recovery, and final disposal of MSW. Results are evaluated under treatment mechanisms of Recycling, Reusing, and repurposing the materials. Overall results show per capita per day of waste generation in Sri Lanka stood at 0.43 kg, whereas, the Western province represents that 0.56 kg due to the high population area with the highest rate of urbanization. However, the global average per capita per day of waste generation stood at 2.22 kg. The material and energy recovery represent 31% and 33% respectively in the study area from total collected waste. 36% of the material finally ended up in open dumpsites even after collection. Further research needs to be done on material and energy recovery potential identification in dumping waste, as this can convert to valuable results with proper management practices with available resources.\"

PURPOSE: Sustainability of a material-based product mainly depends on the materials used for the product itself or during its lifetime. A material selection decision should not only capture the functional performance required but should also consider the economical, social, and environmental impacts originated during the product life cycle. There is a need to assess social impacts of materials along the full life cycle, not only to be able to address the “social dimension” in sustainable material selection but also for potentially improving the circumstances of affected stakeholders. This paper presents the method and a case study of social life cycle assessment (S-LCA) specialized for comparative studies. Although the authors’ focus is on material selection, the proposed methodology can be used for comparative assessment of products in general. METHODS: The method is based on UNEP/SETAC “guidelines for social life-cycle assessment of products” and includes four main phases: goal and scope definition, life cycle inventory analysis, life cycle impact assessment, and life cycle interpretation. However, some special features are presented to adjust the framework for materials comparison purpose. In life cycle inventory analysis phase, a hot spot assessment is carried out using material flow analysis and stakeholder and experts’ interviews. Based on the results of that, a pairwise comparison method is proposed for life cycle impact assessment applying analytic hierarchy process. A case study was conducted to perform a comparative assessment of the social and socio-economic impacts in life cycle of concrete and steel as building materials in Iran. For hot spot analysis, generic and national level data were gathered, and for impact assessment phase, site-specific data were used. RESULT AND DISCUSSION: The unique feature of the proposed method compared with other works in S-LCA is its specialty to materials and products comparison. This leads to some differences in methodological issues of S-LCA that are explained in the paper in detail. The case study results assert that “steel/iron” in the north of Iran generally has the better social performance than “concrete/cement.” However, steel is associated with many negative social effects in some subcategories, e.g., freedom of association, fair salary, and occupational health in extraction phase. Against, social profile of concrete and cement industry is damaged mainly due to the negative impact of cement production on safe and healthy living condition. The case study presented in this article shows that the evaluation of social impacts is possible, even if the assessment is always affected by subjective value systems. CONCLUSIONS: Application of the UNEP/SETAC guidelines in comparative studies can be encouraged based on the results of this paper. It enables a hotspot assessment of the social and socio-economic impacts in life cycle of alternative materials. This research showed that the development of a specialized S-LCA approach for materials and products comparison is well underway although many challenges still persist. Particularly characterization method in life cycle impact assessment phase is challenging. The findings of this case study pointed out that social impacts are primarily connected to the conduct of companies and less with processes and materials in general. These findings confirm the results of Dreyer et al. (Int J Life Cycle Assess 11(2):88–97, 2006). The proposed approach aims not only to identify the best socially sustainable alternative but also to reveal product/process improvement potentials to facilitate companies to act socially compatible. It will be interesting to apply the UNEP/SETAC approach of S-LCA to other materials and products; materials with a more complex life cycle will be a special challenge. As with any new method, getting experience on data collection and evaluation, building a data base, integrating the method in software tools, and finding ways for effective communication of results are important steps until integrating S-LCA in routine decision support.

Knowledge concerning the main flows of priority substances (PSs) and the production systems and consumption structures in the society causing these flows is a prerequisite for any attempt to predict and understand their environmental fate as well as to efficiently minimize future environmental burdens. In this paper, a simple SFA diagram on mercury, including the main European Union (EU-27) source categories, flows and environmental endpoints which in turn affect the mercury concentrations in the EU-27 waters are illustrated. From trend analysis and future projections, it becomes obvious that emissions of mercury as a trace contaminant in fuels and minerals (primary anthropogenic emission sources) are becoming increasingly important to the environmental concentrations compared to emissions from mercury used intentionally (secondary anthropogenic sources). Additional future control strategies should therefore be targeted industrial sources and safe treatment of mercury-containing wastes, wastewater effluents, as well as residues collected from various combustion processes. It was found that knowledge on flows and emission sources on a large geographical scale is limited due to a lack of information on emission factors from various industrial processes and waste systems, especially for the mercury being discharges to water and land.

Metal extraction and smelting cause considerable impacts on the environment. Consumption- based impact accounting highlights the responsibility of metal-consuming industries for the impacts and may drive a system-wide improvement in the structure of related supply chains. To drive the improvements, policies at national level coordinated for respective product types across the nations is needed. However, nationwide responsibility for specific use of metals is difficult to identify because metals are manufactured into composite products (e.g., vehicles) in a country that is in many cases, different from the country where mining is practiced. The final product environmental footprints would not reveal the location where the various impacts are caused. This study presents a method to support the policy coordination by identifying the magnitude of the responsibility of metal-consuming countries for environmental impacts occurred in mining countries so that the countries sharing large responsibilities can find partner countries to jointly work on reduction in environmental impacts effectively. An input-output-based material flow analysis model is used to track the flows of metals included in products made in Japan throughout the international supply chain. In 2005, Japanese industries collected steel alloying elements (manganese, chromium, nickel, molybdenum) embodying 3200 kt-CO2eq and distributed them as both intermediate and final products. For steel mill products, Asian countries were the main destination, while alloying elements contained in other products were relatively evenly exported to Asia, Europe, and North America. By consuming products made in Japan, South Korea, China, the USA, and Taiwan shared approximately 10% each in terms of share of responsibility for greenhouse gas emission embodied in alloying element collected by Japan. Japan shared 40% of the responsibility with domestic consumption of own products. These findings suggest that Japan, a collector and distributor of steel alloying elements, must work on its own resource use reduction policies coordinating with these countries to globally develop sustainable resource use system.

As highly concentrated urbanized areas, urban agglomerations bear increasing resource depletion and environmental pressures, which threaten the regional sustainable development. Resource and environmental problems arising from the process of urbanization can be attributed to the dislocation or maladjustment of material metabolism in time or space. Conducting research on material metabolism at the level of urban agglomerations is helpful in finding the root causes of environmental problems to provide support for the reduction of regional resource consumption and pollution emissions. The material metabolism characteristics of the urban agglomeration and internal cities of the Fujian Delta Urban Agglomeration (FDUA) in China are evaluated using the material flow analysis. The following results are observed. (1) The economic development of the FDUA is still at risk of resource consumption, and a large proportion of hidden flow (HF > 80%) drags down the overall metabolic efficiency and sustainable development. (2) The discharge of various pollutants in the FDUA generally shows a downward trend. Improving metabolic efficiency, delayed MCI growth, and improved overall regional environmental quality are observed. (3) Cities that have relatively scarce land resources but are economically developed, such as Xiamen, still bear a relatively heavy ecological burden (EC dmc  > 1). (4) Regional collaboration is conducive to the sustainable development of multiple regions. On the one hand, the results of this study provide decision-making basis for the sustainable development of the national ecological civilization demonstration area. On the other hand, this work guides the establishment of a comprehensive industrial linkage and cooperation mechanism for the same type of small- and medium-sized urban agglomerations.

The increased use of digital information and communications technologies (ICT) is giving rise to fast-growing waste streams that contain important material resources. In contrast to bulk materials and precious metals, the recovery of most critical metals has not yet been commercially established, and they are thus lost within the recycling process. In this article, we used dynamic material flow analysis to explore the stocks and flows of indium, neodymium, and gold incorporated in end-user devices in Switzerland. Our analysis covered the use, collection, recycling, and disposal phases. This enabled us to track the three metals from their entry into Switzerland as components of new devices until their recovery, disposal in landfills, or dissipation to the environment. Using statistical entropy analysis (SEA), we further analyzed the dilution or concentration of the metals during their route through the current system. The data uncertainty was addressed employing a probabilistic approach. The largest quantities of all three metals are found in the devices currently in use. The second-largest stocks are slags disposed in landfills for indium, slags used for construction for neodymium, and the output of metal recovery processes for gold. The SEA illustrates how the current collection and recycling system successfully concentrates all three metals. While 70% of gold leaving the use phase is recovered, indium and neodymium are dissipated to slags after smelting and incineration processes due to the lack of economic incentives and lacking recovery processes on a commercial scale.

This study aims to develop more inclusive and sustainable waste management practices to be implemented in Bang Chalong Housing, a model community with unsatisfactory waste separation and recycling rate. The extended theory of planned behavior was employed to investigate the effect of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, knowledge, and situational factors on household waste separation intention and behavior, using structural equation modeling as a tool. Based on the questionnaire responses of 321 residents, the house owner’s status exhibited a considerable impact on waste-sorting behavior. Knowledge (β = 0.653; p < 0.001) and subjective norm (β = 0.160; p < 0.05) were two significant predictors of the respondents’ intention, which showed a strong influence on household waste separation behavior (β = 0.804; p < 0.001). Various waste management scenarios were also evaluated through material flow analysis and life cycle assessment. Installing a waste-sorting plant in addition to the current approach (recycling and landfilling) could annually reduce 26.4 tons of solid waste from being landfilled and mitigate GHG emissions by up to 47.4 tons CO2 equivalent. Finally, the implications of these results on designing interventions and amending waste management schemes were discussed.

This article explores the use of field experimentation in presenting an account of input inventory, material quantities, and the process flow for shea butter production in Ghana. The shea fruit is a non-timber forest product (NTFP) that is indigenous to ecosystems in semi-arid regions of Africa. Current methods and equipment for processing shea kernel into butter impose a dilemma of excessive harvesting of fuel wood for heating and the use of large quantities of water. Thus, the nature of input requirement and production process presents implications for conflict over natural resource use and for sustainability as more processing takes place. Material flow analysis was applied to the data generated from the processing experiments. The outcome was discussed in focus group discussion sessions and individual interviews as a way of data triangulation to validate study parameters. Results from this experiment showed that the quantity of water used in urban processing sites was higher than that used in rural sites. On the other hand, fuel wood use and labor expended were found to be higher in rural sites per unit processing cycle. The nature of the processing equipment, accessibility to input resources, and target market for shea butter were key determinants of the varying resource quantities used in the production process.

Agriculture on Miyakojima Island is highly dependent on imported fertilizer and feed. To reduce this dependence, the present research examines the biomass resources on the island by conducting a material flow analysis of stockbreeding and other related systems. To accurately quantify the amount of available biomass resources, loss ratios of the storage and composting processes are established. Then, a material flow analysis of a composting facility is made. Finally, current material flows between beef cattle, sugar cane and pasturage are shown. Based on this research, two proposals are made: the first is to use urine as liquid fertilizer, which is currently being done in Saga prefecture. The precedent of using urine as fertilizer is now widely accepted in the Saga area; is considered to be readily adoptable in other areas and could be substituted for the imported fertilizers on Miyakojima Island. The second is to use more residues of sugar cane for the beef cattle feed when the pasturage growth is slow in the winter. The present research suggests that the silage feeds for beef cattle.

Municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems in developing countries adopt practices from developed countries to reduce their environmental burdens. However, several complex issues specific to developing countries hinder the full implementation of these practices. The future of MSWM in Davao City, Philippines, is envisaged as a notable example of the combination of new infrastructure and local MSWM practices. A linear programming model was developed, following material flow analysis and life cycle assessment, to design an optimal system for Davao City. The performance of the system was evaluated in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, energy and revenue generated, and the amount of landfill waste. The results show that the proposed system positively affects the environment compared to the current system, due to additional treatment options. However, the main allocation concern transitions from organic waste in the current system to plastic waste in future scenarios. Furthermore, the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and the extension of landfill life will be heavily influenced by trade-offs between sorting operations and the management of incinerated wastes with high calorific values. Therefore, plastic-waste-specific treatment options will be critical for future MSWM systems. The results herein underscore the need for sustainable MSWM in the study area, considering the region-specific conditions.