Posted on

New STAR-ProBio open access publication “Effect of Bio-Based Products on Waste Management”

Irena Wojnowska-Baryła, Dorota Kulikowska, Katarzyna Bernat

Abstract

This article focuses on the end-of-life management of bio-based products by recycling, which reduces landfilling. Bio-plastics are very important materials, due to their widespread use in various fields. The advantage of these products is that they primarily use renewable materials. At its end-of-life, a bio-based product is disposed of and becomes post-consumer waste. Correctly designing waste management systems for bio-based products is important for both the environment and utilization of these wastes as resources in a circular economy. Bioplastics are suitable for reuse, mechanical recycling, organic recycling, and energy recovery. The volume of bio-based waste produced today can be recycled alongside conventional wastes. Furthermore, using biodegradable and compostable bio-based products strengthens industrial composting (organic recycling) as a waste management option. If bio-based products can no longer be reused or recycled, it is possible to use them to produce bio-energy. For future effective management of bio-based waste, it should be determined how these products are currently being managed. Methods for valorizing bio-based products should be developed. Technologies could be introduced in conjunction with existing composting and anaerobic digestion infrastructure as parts of biorefineries. One option worth considering would be separating bio-based products from plastic waste, to maintain the effectiveness of chemical recycling of plastic waste. Composting bio-based products with biowaste is another option for organic recycling. For this option to be viable, the conditions which allow safe compost to be produced need to be determined and compost should lose its waste status in order to promote bio-based organic recycling.

Click here to read the full article.

Posted on

New STAR-ProBio publication “Life cycle assessment of autochthonous varieties of wheat and artisanal bread production in Galicia, Spain”

Câmara Salim, I.; Almeida-García, F.; González-García, S.; Romero-Rodríguez, A.; Ruíz-Nogueiras, B.; Pereira-Lorenzo, S.; Feijoo, G.; and Moreira, M.T.

Abstract

For millennia, bread and wheat have been one of the most important sources of nutrients in many civilizations. Today, mechanization and evolution in agriculture and food processing have intensified yields and modified the biological and nutritional aspects of multiple crops and foods. The Galician bread is a reference value of food heritage in Spain, which is made from common wheat grain and is a mixture of indigenous Galician wheat and conventional Spanish wheat. In the pursuit of product excellence, it is interesting to identify the environmental profile as support criteria in decision-making, not only to analyse product environmental sustainability, but also as a marketing element to improve consumer awareness.

The paper has a twofold perspective to analyse the environmental burdens of wheat cultivation and the bread sector, using life cycle assessment approach: 1) the comparison of the different types of agricultural systems, i.e. the cultivation of Galician wheat following a strategy of monoculture and crop rotation, certified Galician seed production and its comparison with conventional wheat cultivation and 2) the environmental profile of Galician bread. The functional units chosen were 1 kg of wheat grain transported to the milling facility and 1 kg of Galician bread.

The results show that wheat cultivation presents the main environmental impacts of bread production, mainly due to the use of agrochemicals and field emissions. The best cultivation scenario corresponds to a crop rotation system, since chemical fertilisation is not applied. In comparative terms with many staple foods produced in Europe, Galician bread has a low environmental impact. The overall environmental results of bread production draw attention to the dependence of bread and flour manufacturers on the agricultural sector, highlighting the need to share responsibilities across the supply chain. In addition, this study contributes to the stakeholder debate on environmental impacts related to food heritage.

URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720302308

Posted on

New Gold Open Access Paper by UWM – Journal of Cleaner Production

Environmental external cost of poplar wood chips sustainable production

Click here to read the full article.
Posted on

New Gold Open Access STAR-ProBio Publication

Hybridised sustainability metrics for use in life cycle assessment of bio-based products: resource efficiency and circularity

Kadambari Lokesh, Avtar S. Matharu, Ioannis K. Kookos, Dimitris Ladakis, Apostolis Koutinas, Piergiuseppe Morone and James Clark

 

Abstract

The development, implementation and social acceptance of resource efficient, circular, bio-based economies require critical understanding of the whole supply chain from feedstock to end-use. Trust, transparency and traceability will be paramount. Though life cycle assessment (LCA) is a universally chosen approach to fulfil this purpose, the nature of data required and the depth of analysis lead to complex interpretations of the findings. Herein, a new set of hybridised, first-line sustainability indicators, drawn from the principles of green chemistry and resource (material and energy) circularity, are reported. These flexible, potentially stand-alone metrics are demonstrated via application to an exemplary comparative LCA, incorporating the hybridised indicators including hazardous chemical use, waste generated, resource circularity and energy efficiency, from the “gate-to-gate” stages for the bio-based case studies and their petro-derived commercial counterparts. These metrics were observed to quantify critical new information relevant to our transition to a circular economy, bridging significant gaps in contemporary environmental impact assessment methodologies. Appropriate additional evaluations that examine the performance of metrics, when the embedded resource efficiency and circularity strategies are omitted, have also been undertaken and reported. The data drawn from employing these methods are crucial to inform and encourage operational optimisation, transparency in sustainability reporting and practices to a significant number of value-chain actors including manufacturers, policy makers and consumers.

Click here to read the full article.

Posted on

Sustainable Metrics Symposium at the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence

On 11th September 2019, the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence (GCCE) at the University of York held a one-day symposium titled “Sustainability Metrics: Tracking, Measuring and Reporting Responsible Innovation”. This was the second “Sustainability Metrics” symposium held at the GCCE as part of the European Union’s Horizon 2020-funded STAR-ProBio research project.

The aim of the symposium was to give researchers the opportunity to discuss their use of green chemistry metrics and other toolkits, to assess the sustainability of their research, and to encourage discussions and future collaborations between academic and industrial researchers. A total of 25 delegates, from academia and industry across the UK and Europe, attended the event with speakers from the University of Sheffield, University of York, Drax, Croda, CO2Chem, OWS Limited, Pré Sustainability and Novamont in attendance.

 

The symposium included oral presentations from academic and industrial researchers, including Dr Francesco Razza and Dr Kadambari Lokesh from the STAR-ProBio project.

Posted on

STAR-ProBio Summer School

On the 5th of September, our colleagues Sergio Ugarte, Deniz Koca, Matthias Grill, Mathilde Crepy, Beike Sumfleth and Enrico Balugani have successfully conducted in Göteborg the STAR-ProBio Summer School “Sustainability certification and market uptake of bio-based products. Focus on the construction sector” as part of the EIT Climate-KIC Summer School on wood construction in climate change mitigation https://learning.climate-kic.org/en/courses/phd-catapult/wood-construction-in-climate-change-mitigation#introduction.

They have trained 20 PhD students from different EU Universities in the importance and developments of standards and certification schemes for assessing the sustainability of bio-based products used in the construction industry.