This paper presents challenges in city logistics for circular supply chains of e-e-waste. Efficient e-waste management is one of the strategies to save materials, critical minerals, and precious metals. E-waste collection and recycling have gained attention recently due to lower collection and recycling rates. However, implementing circular urban supply chains is a significant economic transformation that can only work if coordination decisions are solved between the actors involved. On the one hand, this requires the implementation of efficient urban collection technologies, where waste collection companies collaborate with manufacturers, urban waste treatment specialists, and city logistics service providers supported by digital solutions for visibility and planning. On the other hand, it also requires implementing urban and regional ecosystems connected by innovative CO2-neutral circular city logistics systems. These systems must smoothly and sustainably manage the urban and regional flow of resources and data, often at a large scale and with interfaces between industrial processes, private, and public actors. This paper presents future research questions from a city logistics perspective based on a European project aimed at developing a blueprint for systemic solutions for the circularity of plastics from applications of rigid PU foams used as insulation material in refrigerators.
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It is of utmost importance to collect organic waste from households as a separate waste stream. If collected separately, it could be used optimally to produce compost and biogas, it would not pollute fractions of materials that can be recovered from residual waste streams and it would not deteriorate the quality of some materials in residual waste (e.g. paper). In rural areas with separate organic waste collection systems, large quantities of organic waste are recovered. However, in the larger cities, only a small fraction of organic waste is recovered. In general, citizens dot not have space to store organic waste without nuisances of smell and/or flies. As this has been the cause of low organic waste collection rates, collection schemes have been cut, which created a further negative impact. Hence, additional efforts are required. There are some options to improve the organic waste recovery within the current system. Collection schemes might be improved, waste containers might be adapted to better suit the needs, and additional underground organic waste containers might be installed in residential neighbourhoods. There are persistent stories that separate organic waste collection makes no sense as the collectors just mix all municipal solid waste after collection, and incinerate it. Such stories might be fuelled by the practice that batches of contaminated organic waste are indeed incinerated. Trust in the system is important. Food waste is often regarded as unrein. Users might hate to store food waste in their kitchen that could attract insects, or the household pets. Hence, there is a challenge for socio-psychological research. This might also be supported by technology, e.g. organic waste storage devices and measures to improve waste separation in apartment buildings, such as separate chutes for waste fractions. Several cities have experimented with systems that collect organic wastes by the sewage system. By using a grinder, kitchen waste can be flushed into the sewage system, which in general produces biogas by the fermentation of sewage sludge. This is only a good option if the sewage is separated from the city drainage system, otherwise it might create water pollution. Another option might be to use grinders, that store the organic waste in a tank. This tank could be emptied regularly by a collection truck. Clearly, the preferred option depends on local conditions and culture. Besides, the density of the area, the type of sewage system and its biogas production, and the facilities that are already in place for organic waste collection are important parameters. In the paper, we will discuss the costs and benefits of future organic waste options and by discussing The Hague as an example.
The EU-28’s food service sector generates excessive amounts of food waste. This notwithstanding, no comparative, cross-national research has ever been undertaken to understand how food waste is managed in restaurants across the EU-28. This study contributes to knowledge by presenting a first attempt to conduct a comparative analysis of restaurant food waste management practices in the UK and the Netherlands. It finds that although restaurateurs in both countries use demand forecasting as a prime approach to prevent food waste, forecasting does not always work. When this happens, food waste management programmes such as repurposing excess foodstuffs, redistribution of surplus food and consumer choice architecture are mostly considered commercially unviable. To improve the effectiveness of food waste management in the food service sectors of the UK and the Netherlands it is necessary to ensure that food waste mitigation becomes a corporate target for restaurateurs and the progress towards its achievement is regularly monitored by top management. This corporate commitment should be facilitated by national policy-makers, but also by EU regulators, by raising consumer awareness of food waste, incentivising surplus food redistribution and enabling food waste recycling.
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In June 2016, two Dutch SME companies which are active in the area of urban solid waste management approached the International Environmental Sciences department of Avans about the current R&D activities on urban solid waste management in cooperation with the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) Brazil. The companies had interest in developing activities in Brazil, since they are aware of the great potential for exporting both knowledge and technology. Solid waste poses a major problem in Brazil which affects 200 million residents. The Brazilian municipalities collect around 71 million tons solid municipal waste on a yearly basis and only a tiny percentage of this collected waste gets recycled. As such. the overwhelming majority of the collected urban solid waste goes to landfills. Within the State of Minas Gerais there are 850 towns of which 600 have less than 20.000 residents and are agriculturally oriented. Current organic waste composting practices take place under very poor conditions (pathogens and weeds still remain in the compost) and most often the resulting compost product is not well received by its residential and agricultural consumers. As such there is huge room for improvement. The SME companies work with Avans and UFMG to address these challenges. The joint research team consisting of the two Dutch SME companies and the two Research and educational institutes have defined the following research question: What is the current status of organic solid waste management in Minas Gerais and how can cooperation between Brazil and the Netherlands result in a win-win for both countries? Two individual KIEM VANG proposals have been defined in order to address these challenges. The planned activities are a joint effort with professor R. T. de Vasconcelos Barros of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) and are executed within the Living Lab Biobased Brazil program (www.biobasedbrazil.org).
De horeca-sector en het toerisme worden zwaar getroffen door de huidige crisis. Omzetschade is historisch groot; tegelijkertijd zijn er vanuit de praktijk veel vragen over hoe nieuwe werkwijzen moeten worden ontwikkeld en toegepast. Voor onze sector voorziet onderzoek in het kader van de Impuls-regeling daarom onmiskenbaar in een grote maatschappelijke behoefte. Hotelschool The Hague (HTH) zet strategisch in op het behoud en de versterking van praktijkgericht onderzoek en op het onderzoekend vermogen van haar studenten. Onderzoekend vermogen is, voor toekomstige afstudeerders in een snel veranderende arbeidsmarkt, door de HTH gedefinieerd als cruciale kernvaardigheid. In dit kader zijn recent de onderwijs- en onderzoeksprogramma’s van de HTH hervormd rond de principes van Design Oriented Research. Door de COVID-19 crisis is de continuïteit van het praktijkgericht onderzoek van de HTH, misschien nog wel meer dan bij brede hogescholen onder druk komen te staan. Met het hier voorgestelde Impuls 2020 bestedingsplan wil HTH de onderzoeksfunctie van haar praktische outlets — haar schoolrestaurants en -hotels— verder versterken zodat deze kunnen worden ingericht en gebruikt als ‘test-beds’ of HTH Labs. De schoolrestaurants en -hotels worden hiermee een faciliteit voor experimenteel, praktijkgericht onderzoek waar in commerciële bedrijven vaak geen mogelijkheid voor is. Dit Impuls 2020 voorstel behelst de visievorming voor de HTH Labs en de netwerkvorming met andere kennisinstellingen en met bedrijven als beoogde afnemers van de kennis die in de Labs ontwikkeld zal worden. Het voorstel voorziet tevens in de uitvoering van 3 pilotstudies die de mogelijkheden van de HTH Labs inzichtelijk maken voor het bedrijfsleven. De Impuls financiering zal uiteindelijk resulteren in een operationele onderzoeksfaciliteit in de schoolrestaurants en -hotels van de HTH, en in drie onderzoeksrapporten met bijbehorende disseminatie-activiteiten.
In the Netherlands, the theme of transitioning to circular food systems is high on the national agenda. The PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency has stressed that commuting to circular food chains requires a radical transformation of the food chain where (a) natural resources must be effectively used and managed (soil, water, biodiversity, minerals), (b) there must be an optimum use of food by reducing (food) waste . . ., (c) less environmental pressure, and (d) an optimum use of residue streams. The PBL also recognizes that there should be room for tailored solutions and that it is important to establish a benchmark, to be aware of impacts in the production chain and the added value of products. In the line of circular food systems, an integrated nature-inclusive circular farming approach is needed in order to develop a feasible resource-efficient and sustainable business models that brings shared value into the food chain while invigorating the rural areas including those where agricultural vacancy is occurring. Agroforestry is an example of an integrated nature-inclusive circular farming. It is a multifunctional system that diversifies and adapts the production while reducing the carbon footprint and minimizing the management efforts and input costs; where trees, crops and/or livestock open business opportunities in the food value chains as well as in the waste stream chains. To exploit the opportunities that agroforestry as an integrated resource-efficient farming system adds to the advancement towards (a) valuable circular short food chains, (b) nature-based entrepreneurship (nature-inclusive agriculture), and (c) and additionally, the re-use of abandoned agricultural spaces in the Overijssel province, this project mobilizes the private sector, provincial decision makers, financers and knowledge institutes into developing insights over the feasible implementation of agroforestry systems that can bring economic profit while enhancing and maintaining ecosystem services.
