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The global emission pathways which allow keeping the global temperature increase “well below 2°C” as set by the Paris Agreement require a rapid and drastic emission reduction reaching net zero emissions by 2050. Furthermore, hundreds to thousands of gigatonnes of CO2 need to be removed from the atmosphere cumulatively by 2100 to limit global warming to 1.5°C, which means that a portfolio of different Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) terrestrial and marine processes should be developed and upscaled.Among CDR solutions, Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) is the unique one which also counteracts the ongoing ocean acidification. OAE consists of spreading an alkaline material on the sea surface, enhancing the ocean alkalinity and consequently the sea uptake of atmospheric CO2, which is then stored in the form of dissolved bicarbonate ions (HCO3-).To produce carbon emission-free Ca(OH)2 and consequently increase the overall process efficiency in CO2 removal, when slaked lime (Ca(OH)2) is used as alkaline material for OAE, the CO2 released from the limestone calcination should be captured and stored. Since the most developed storage alternatives are underground geological formations whose main limitations are the long time required for qualifying their suitability (on the order of years), the geographical uneven distribution and the uncertain injection rate, an alternative storage technology called Buffered Accelerated Weathering of Lime (BAWL) is under study.BAWL stores CO2 from calcination in the form of HCO3- in seawater using a pipeline where CO2 dissolves in seawater and reacts with Ca(OH)2, forming dissolved Ca(HCO3)2 mimicking natural weathering but in an accelerated way. The use of Ca(OH)2 allows to discharge an ionic solution with the seawater pH, to avoid CO2 degassing and to store permanently CO2 in the form of bicarbonates. Since the raw materials are CO2, Ca(OH)2 and seawater, BAWL fits well with OAE.To assess the overall process efficiency in CO2 removal, i.e., the effective CO2 removal net of life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was applied to a process whose system boundaries encompass limestone extraction, other raw materials supply, Ca(OH)2 discharge in the sea and CO2 storage through BAWL. In addition to climate change, 15 additional impact categories are considered for the environmental assessment according to the Environmental Footprint method, and the ecoinvent database was used for supporting the life-cycle inventory.Electricity is considered the energy source for calcination, that requires 83% of the total energy demand, and its production from renewables results as the most impacting phase in most of the impact categories. Thus, the variation of climate change impact was analysed by varying the electricity emission factor. With renewables, the process efficiency is at least 85%, i.e. less than 15% of removed CO2 compensates the life-cycle GHG emissions removing 1.4 molCO2/molCa(OH)2.Due to the lack of an impact category for assessing ecotoxicity on marine environments, further research is required to include in the LCA methodology the assessment of the benefits from the alkalinity enhancement and the contrast to ocean acidification, as well as the potential risks on the pelagic ecosystem.

Entre las principales limitaciones para la producción de amaranto, se señalan diversas especies de insectos fitófagos. Se propuso como objetivo aportar al conocimiento de las especies de herbívoros y enemigos naturales asociados a este cultivo, determinando densidad, momentos de aparición y su relación con las etapas fenológicas. En parcelas experimentales de Amaranthus hypochondriacus ubicadas en el Campo Escuela de la Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, se realizaron muestreos semanales, desde emergencia hasta madurez fisiológica del cultivo, durante las campañas agrícolas 2016, 2017 y 2019 para obtener ejemplares de fitófagos y predadores. La comunidad de insectos estuvo conformada por 5 órdenes, 21 familias y 40 especies. Coleoptera mostró la mayor abundancia de ejemplares. Se destacó la importancia de la oruga defoliadora Achyra similalis y de dos especies de barrenadores, Conotrachelus histrio y Aerenea cuadriplagiata, por su presencia y abundancia en la etapa reproductiva del cultivo. A partir de larvas de Lepidoptera, se obtuvieron seis especies de parasitoides (Hymenoptera y Diptera). Principalmente asociados a orugas pequeñas y colonias de pulgones, se registraron además seis especies de predadores (Coleoptera, Hemiptera y Diptera).

Carbon dioxide storage technologies are needed not only to store the carbon captured in the emissions of hard-to-abate sectors but also for some carbon dioxide removal technologies requiring a final and permanent storage of CO2. The pace and scale of geological CO2 storage deployment have fallen short of expectations, and there is a growing interest in ocean-based CO2 storage options. As complementary to geological storage, buffered accelerated weathering of limestone (BAWL) has been proposed to produce a buffered ionic solution at seawater pH, derived from the reaction in seawater between a CO2 stream and a micron-sized powder of calcium carbonate (CaCO3), within a long tubular reactor. The addition of calcium hydroxide to buffer the unreacted CO2 before the discharge in seawater is also envisaged. BAWL avoids the risks of CO2 degassing back into the atmosphere and does not induce seawater acidification. This work presents a mass and energy balance and preliminary cost analysis of the technology for different configurations of discharge depth (100, 500, 3,000 m), pipeline length (10, 25, 100 km) and diameter of CaCO3 particles (1, 2, 10 µm) fed in the tubular reactor. The total energy consumption to capture and store 1 t of CO2 generated by a steam-methane reforming (SMR) process ranges from 1.3 to 2.2 MWh. The CO2 released from the CaCO3 calcination to produce the buffering solution leads to a total CO2 storage requirement 43–85% higher than the CO2 derived by SMR. The total cost to capture and store 1 t of CO2 from SMR is estimated in the range 142–189 €.

Passenger cars account for 44% of greenhouse gas emissions from transport in the European Union. To align with the European Green Deal by 2050, road transport should develop and deploy alternative technologies to reduce emissions by 90%. In this work, the Life Cycle Assessment methodology was applied to assess the environmental impacts of a medium (C-segment) internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) and a medium (C-segment) battery electric vehicle (BEV). For the ICEV, four innovative petrol blends were considered. These innovative blends consist of petrol and fuels such as fossil ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), bio-ETBE, bionaphtha, bioethanol, methanol, biomethanol, and e-methanol. After a preliminary selection of biofuel alternatives, all the assessed blends potentially guarantee a slight reduction in climate change (from 0.8% to 10.1%) compared to the reference petrol car. The blend containing bionaphtha contributed the least to climate change. The BEV released about 41% less greenhouse gas emissions thanthe reference car. Although the ICEV and the BEV showed a reduction in climate change and fossil resources, the picture is less straightforward for the other 14 impact categories.

Purpose The most abundant among the separately collected waste materials in Italy is food waste. This research aims to evaluate the influence of the type of collection bag on the food waste management chain. In Italy, the food waste collection is mainly based on bioplastic bags. As an alternative, a new type of recycled paper bag shows potential advantages. Methods The two types of collection bag were compared evaluating the weight loss of food waste during the household storage, by means of an experimental assessment simulating the domestic dynamic bag filling. Moreover, the biomethane production of bags under anaerobic conditions was measured at the lab-scale level with Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) tests. Results During the household storage, the breathable fabric of the paper allows for higher weight losses, ranging on average between + 29 and + 44% compared to bioplastic. BMP tests, carried out under different conditions (temperature, inoculum), showed a 2–14 times higher generation of methane by paper bags compared to bioplastic bags, when referred to 1 kg of inserted food waste. Conclusions Collecting the food waste inside paper bags shows advantages compared to the use of bioplastic bags. First, the waste collection is benefitted thanks to the lower weight of material to be transported to treatment plants, leading also to the possibility of decreasing the collection frequency. Moreover, paper resulted more compatible than bioplastic with the anaerobic digestion treatment, which is currently rapidly increasing as a food waste management option. Graphic Abstract

Lime is a product derived from the thermal decomposition of limestone (mainly calcium carbonate, CaCO3) into quicklime (CaO) and carbon dioxide (CO2), also called calcination. Controlled reaction w...

Solid waste management (SWM) is recognized worldwide as an important issue to deal with in pursuing livability. The favela (slum) of Rocinha represents a good synthesis of all challenges which can be encountered in this field: high population density , lack of space and narrow streets, residents struggling with low incomes. In Rocinha, services coverage is lacking and unsatisfying in many sectors, including SWM. In this study, we investigate the reason for this inadequacy. Waste streams have been analyzed as a first step. The second step was the description of the SWM system and of its criticalities. All accessible information has been used and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) played an important role in the data processing. In the final discussion, we suggest a small-scale and decentralized waste management network, collaborating with the centralized collection system. This study is a piece of the project Polimipararocinha of Politecnico di Milano (Italy) which pursues the overall urban re-qualification of Rocinha.

The deployment of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) processes is required, as well as strong and immediate emission reductions, to limit the global temperature increase “well below to 2°C above pre-industrial levels” as required by the Article 2 of the Paris Agreement.Among the CDR processes, ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) allows to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and simultaneously to counteract the ongoing ocean acidification caused by the increased CO2 atmospheric concentration. In the framework of the DESARC (DEcreasing Seawater Acidification Removing Carbon) MARESANUS research project, different strategies to produce decarbonized slaked lime (SL), i.e. Ca(OH)2, and to discharge it in the seawater have been evaluated.The feasibility and the potential of OAE were evaluated at the global scale and at the Mediterranean Sea basin scale. Two different logistic scenarios for the discharge of SL were analyzed: new dedicated ships, and partial load on modified existing dry bulk and container ships. The data on the existing global fleet of vessels and marine routes has been elaborated to assess the potential discharge of SL.Through the life-cycle assessment methodology, the efficiency of removing CO2 from the atmosphere was evaluated, as well as other potential environmental impacts connected to SL production and transport. The “cradle-to-grave” approach has been applied to different configurations of the process, that consider both biomass gasification and the use of renewables as a source of energy for limestone calcination, as well as eventual CO2/H2 separation and CO2 storage.The data collected for the life cycle inventory were mainly obtained from the preliminary design of the process and the scientific literature, as well as from the ecoinvent database. According to the environmental footprint method implemented in SimaPro software, sixteen impact categories for assessing the burdens on the environment and human are evaluated, with a particular focus on Climate change, Land use, and Mineral and metals use.The results show that for all the analyzed configurations, the process has a potential negative impact on the Climate change category, i.e. there is a benefit for the environment in terms of CO2 removal from the atmosphere. Since the avoided impacts are related to the source for hydrogen, the type of avoided source has a relevant role and is subjected to a sensitivity analysis.Finally, the availability of limestone for the large-scale development of ocean alkalinisation have been evaluated, considering in particular the deposits of pure limestone near the coastlines, that could minimize logistic and transportation activities.Results show that pure carbonate potential resources are of several trillion tons and are not a constraint for the development of global-scale ocean liming. A large part of pure limestone resources is nearby the coastline, in areas with no or low vegetation cover, mainly in North Africa and Iran. Global limestone yearly production is similar to coal, and the required upscaling compared to the current extraction rate is far lower for limestone than for other materials considered for OAE, such as olivine, magnesite and brucite.

The amount of compostable bioplastics collected with the food waste is constantly growing, particularly due to the bags used for collection. According to the Italian legislation, compostable bioplastics must be accepted by all biological treatment plants, including aerobic and anaerobic facilities. Anyway, the compostability standard requires only the assessment of the aerobic degradability, while it is generally not required to test the behaviour under anaerobic conditions. This aspect is evaluated in the paper, where the anaerobic degradability of bioplastic bags used for the food waste collection is assessed. First, Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) tests were performed on four commercial types of bioplastic bags, including those designed only for the collection of food waste and the shoppers, that can be reused for the same purpose. Subsequently, an innovative approach for this kind of substrate was applied, subjecting two bags to semi-continuous co-digestion tests together with the food waste. Both tests were performed by comparing the behaviour of bioplastic bags with that of an alternative collection paper bag. Finally, tests to evaluate the influence of physical phenomena on the degradation of bioplastics were performed to better understand the results of biological tests. BMP tests indicated a good degradability (71%) of bioplastic bags, while semi-continuous tests showed a much lower degradability (27%), confirmed by the observation of the undigested bag pieces. On the contrary, the paper bag presents interesting characteristics, because its degradability in the semi-continuous tests (82%) resulted even higher than that observed in the BMP tests (74%). These results highlight an important difference between the bags mono-digestion by means of BMP tests and the semi-continuous co-digestion tests with food waste, which better simulate the full-scale operational conditions.

This paper describes the potential application of a new patented technology for the storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) in glass containers into the deep seabed (confined submarine carbon storage (CSCS)) to cement plants located in four different locations in the world. This technology is based on the bottling of liquid CO2 at high pressure inside capsules made of glass that are delivered to the bottom of the ocean via a proper pipeline. A Life Cycle Assessment that considers all the stages of the process and 13 impact categories, with a focus on climate change, shows an impact in the four case studies between 0.084 and 0.132 ton of CO2 equivalent (eq) per ton of CO2 stored. Since carbonation of cement materials over their life cycle is a significant and growing net sink of CO2, the capture and storage of CO2 emissions generated during the production of cement might lead to negative emissions. A cost analysis was also performed, including the capital costs and the operational costs, even considering the funding structure through financing and equity. The costs of the four case studies are from 16 to 29 $/tCO2. Although further work is needed to assess in detail some aspects of the design, the result of this stage of the research allows concluding that the application of the CSCS in cement plants is an interesting option for achieving negative emissions, even if limited due the slowness of CO2 uptake during the lifetime of cement materials.

Automation in driving will change the role of the drivers from actor to passive supervisor. Although the vehicle will be responsible for driving manoeuvres, drivers will need to rely on automation and understand its decisions to establish a trusting relationship between them and the vehicle. Progress has been made in conversational agents and affective machines recently. Moreover, it seems to be promising in this establishment of trust between humans and machines. We believe it is essential to investigate the use of emotional conversational agents in the automotive context to build a solid relationship between the driver and the vehicle. In this workshop, we aim at gathering researchers and industry practitioners from different fields of HCI, ML/AI, NLU and psychology to brainstorm about affective machines, empathy and conversational agent with a particular focus on human-vehicle interaction. Questions like ”What would be the specificities of a multimodal and empathic agent in a car?”, ”How the agent could make the driver aware of the situation?” and ”How to measure the trust between the user and the autonomous vehicle?” will be addressed in this workshop.

The European transport sector was responsible for more than 25% of the EU total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2017. 53% of these emissions came from the passenger cars and light-commercial vehicles segments. Biofuels are seen as one of the options to limit these emissions in Europe. To understand the recent evolution of biofuels and their future, this review gives an overview on the production, use, legislation, and environmental impacts of biofuels in Europe for light-duty vehicles. In 2017, biofuels made up 4.5% of the energy consumption in the road transport and non-road mobile machinery. Biodiesel in 2018 accounted for 62% of the biofuels consumed in the EU, followed by bioethanol (17.5%), HVO (16.6%), upgraded biogas (1.7%) and bio-ETBE (1.1%). A review of 86 LCA studies published between 2013 and 2020 indicated that the climate change impact of biofuels is generally lower than diesel and petrol, with average emission savings depending on the type of biofuel: 70% for biohydrogen, 63% for upgraded biogas, 41% for pure biodiesel, between 54% and 7% for bioethanol (depending on the blend percentage, between 100% and 10%). An important issue identified is the limited consideration of the land use change effects, which are rarely assessed and are of paramount importance, as the values found in this review were as high as 231 g CO2eq/MJ in some cases and thus non-negligible. Biofuels perform generally similarly or worse than fossil fuels for most of the non-GHG-related impact categories, except for ozone, fossil resource and abiotic depletion. Currently, it is highly recommended to move towards non-edible feedstocks, waste and by-products which guarantee a lower risk of land use change. The European legislation, through the Directive 2018/2001 and the regulation 2019/807, is pushing in that direction.

We present an evolution of the Accelerated Weathering of Limestone (AWL) method to store CO2 in seawater in the form of bicarbonates. Buffered Accelerated Weathering of Limestone (BAWL) is designed to produce a buffered ionic solution, at seawater pH, which derives from the reaction between a CO2 stream and a powder of micron-sized calcium carbonate particles in a long tubular reactor. Addition of calcium hydroxide to buffer the unreacted CO2 before the discharge in seawater is also provided. BAWL aims to overcome the main limitations of AWL, such as the high amount of water needed, the large size of the reactor, the risk of CO2 degassing back into the atmosphere, if the ionic solution is released into shallow waters, as well as the induced seawater acidification. This paper presents the chemical background of the technology and evaluates its feasibility by considering the chemical equilibria in the different phases of the process. The CO2 emitted for limestone calcination leads to a 24% CO2 penalty; a preliminary cost analysis assesses a storage cost of 100 € per tonne of CO2 from an external source. It finally discusses the main features to be considered for the design at the industrial scale.

This essay intends to outline a synthetic excursus on my research, didactical and consultancy experience in the field of bioclimatic design for architecture. The aim is to highlight the milestones of my academic and professional career with regard to interrelationships between the bioclimatic approach and the design process in building design as well as landscape and urban design.

The organic fraction (mainly food waste) is typically the most abundant of the separately collected waste streams. The research aims at investigating the influence of different types of collection bag on the environmental performances of the food waste management chain in Italy. A comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) between two alternative systems based on paper or bioplastic collection bags was carried out. It included the collection bags manufacturing and distribution, their use at the household, the transportation of collected food waste and its subsequent anaerobic digestion, including the valorisation of useful outputs and the management of residues. The two systems were modelled mainly with primary data related to the current management system and to tests performed on bags. The LCA was performed with two different modelling approaches applied in the environmental product declaration (EPD) system and in the product environmental footprint (PEF) studies, respectively. In the scenario representing the average conditions, higher environmental impacts are shown by the use of bioplastic bags compared to paper ones with the EPD approach (+257%/+576%). With the PEF approach, the differences between the two systems are lower (−55%/+133%). Moreover, paper bags could allow for further impact reductions assuming a decrease of the food waste collection frequency, allowed by higher weight losses and a lower generation of leachate and odour during the household storage.

This essay intends to outline a synthetic excursus on the origin and development of the approach relating architecture to climate in the works of researchers and architects, as an extensive interpretation of what is called in this book bioclimatic architecture.

It is now widely recognized that in order to reach the target of limiting global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels (as the objective of the Paris agreement), cutting the carbon emissions even at an unprecedented pace will not be sufficient, but there is the need for development and implementation of active Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) strategies. Among the CDR strategies that currently exist, relatively few studies have assessed the mitigation capacity of ocean-based Negative Emission Technologies (NET) and the feasibility of their implementation on a larger scale to support efficient implementation strategies of CDR. This study investigates the case of ocean alkalinization, which has the additional potential of contrasting the ongoing acidification resulting from increased uptake of atmospheric CO2 by the seas. More specifically, we present an analysis of marine alkalinization applied to the Mediterranean Sea taking into consideration the regional characteristics of the basin. Rather than using idealized spatially homogenous scenarios of alkalinization as done in previous studies, which are practically hard to implement, we use a set of numerical simulations of alkalinization based on current shipping routes to quantitatively assess the alkalinization efficiency via a coupled physical-biogeochemical model (NEMO-BFM) for the Mediterranean Sea at 1/16° horizontal resolution (~6 km) under an RCP4.5 scenario over the next decades. Simulations suggest the potential of nearly doubling the carbon-dioxide uptake rate of the Mediterranean Sea after 30 years of alkalinization, and of neutralizing the mean surface acidification trend of the baseline scenario without alkalinization over the same time span. These levels are achieved via two different alkalinization strategies that are technically feasible using the current network of cargo and tanker ships: a first approach applying annual discharge of 200 Mt Ca(OH)2 constant over the alkalinization period and a second approach with gradually increasing discharge proportional to the surface pH trend of the baseline scenario, reaching similar amounts of annual discharge by the end of the alkalinization period. We demonstrate that the latter approach allows to stabilize the mean surface pH at present day values and substantially increase the potential to counteract acidification relative to the alkalinity added, while the carbon uptake efficiency (mole of CO2 absorbed by the ocean per mole of alkalinity added) is only marginally reduced. Nevertheless, significant local alterations of the surface pH persist, calling for an investigation of the physiological and ecological implications of the extent of these alterations to the carbonate system in the short to medium term in order to support a safe, sustainable application of this CDR implementation.

A Euro 6d-TEMP GDI passenger car was tested with four different fuels both in the laboratory and on the road. Bionaphtha, methanol, bioethanol, and bio-ETBE (ethyl tert-butyl ether) were selected as the most promising products to be blended with petrol, in order to reduce its carbon footprint. The research aimed at measuring the exhaust emissions released when feeding the vehicle with renewable streams for fuels, to verify their conformity to the Euro standards and to compare the emissions with those released using a reference commercial petrol containing a typical level of bio-ETBE (Fuel A). Fuel B was a mixture of renewable oxygenates and hydrocarbons, containing bioethanol and bionaphtha. Fuel C contained a high level of renewable ethers (bio-ETBE) and Fuel D contained a not negligible level of renewable alcohols (methanol and bioethanol). The measurements included not only regulated pollutants, but also non-regulated pollutants and greenhouse gases. All exhaust emissions of the tested fuels were compliant with Euro 6 standard (for WLTP, Worldwide harmonised Light vehicles Test Procedure) and with Not-To-Exceed limits (for RDE, Real Driving Emissions). Compared with the reference fuel A in WLTP tests, Fuel B showed a statistically significant reduction in fuel consumption (−3.4%) and in CO2 emissions (−6.9%). Fuel C caused a decrease of CO and NO2 (−22.3% and −2.9%, respectively) and an increase in NOx emissions (+50.7%) and fuel consumption (+1.6%). Finally, with Fuel D the NOx emissions have increased (+48.1%). The emission of total aldehydes, only measured and detectable during cold conditions of the WLTP cycle, remained in a low range of values (1.5–2.5 mg/km). Based on the performed tests, none of the fuels clearly showed any criticality as a whole for tailpipe emissions. With respect to the laboratory tests, the RDE runs resulted in higher NOx and CO2 emissions and fuel consumption for all fuels compared to reference Fuel A, while CO, THC, CH4, and PN (Particles Number) emissions were lower. The percentage changes observed between laboratory and road tests were different, due to the different methodology and the intrinsic non-repeatability of the latter. Moreover, it was demonstrated how the emission factors resulting from the processing of raw measurements through a regulation-compliant software can significantly differ from those directly based on raw measurements.

A new process to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, by combining commercial industrial technologies with ocean liming and CO2 storage, is presented. The process aims to overcome the limiting factors of other negative emission technologies (cost and energy requirements, potential competition for land and freshwater) while simultaneously addressing the problem of ocean acidification. The overall proposed process is based on the following: (a) a gasifier where the biomass is converted to syngas; (b) a thermal steam reformer working at high temperature where the hydrocarbons and tar oils are converted to hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO); (c) a kiln to produce Ca(OH)2 (slaked lime) from limestone by using the enthalpy of the hot syngas; (d) the spreading, by means of vessels, of the slaked lime into the seawater to achieve ocean liming; (e) the delivery of syngas to a water gas shift reactor producing CO2 and H2 that are then separated; (f) the final storage of all CO2 produced in the process; (g) the use of H2, being the valuable by-product of the whole process, for decarbonized energy production as well as for ammonia synthesis, offsetting part of the production cost, thus generating “low-cost” negative emissions. The mass and energy balances show that the total atmospheric CO2 removed by the process is 2.6 ton per ton of biomass used. By adding an estimated 0.43 ton avoided—thanks to the use of produced H2—the overall CO2 benefit of the process increases to 3.0 ton per ton of biomass. A preliminary cost analysis resulted in an average levelized cost of 98 $ per ton of CO2 removed; when considering the revenues from the produced energy, the cost falls to 64 $/tCO2. The higher efficiency in carbon removal obtained allows to reduce the amount of biomass required by BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) to achieve negative emissions, and thanks to the valuable H2 produced it lowers the costs of CO2 removal from the atmosphere.

Re-use of packaging items plays a key role in the achievement of sustainable management of the resources. The aim of this study is to assess the environmental impacts associated with the life cycle of steel drums used for carrying chemical and petrochemical products as a function of the number of uses (the so-called “rotations”), by means of the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. The results show that the impacts of the life cycle of the steel drums mainly come from their manufacturing, whereas the reconditioning process accounts for less than 20% of the overall impacts. Moreover, a system where the drums are reconditioned and re-used has better environmental performance than a system where the same drums are used only once and then sent to recycling. The advantages of such a system increase with the number of rotations. For example, in case just two rotations take place, the environmental impacts of a system based on re-use are on average about 74% of those of a single-use system, and drop to 53% if the number of uses increases to 10. The behavior of the drums users is thus very important to prevent excessive damage that will make reconditioning impossible.

It is the overarching aim of the circular economy to maintain the value of products, materials, and resources for as long as possible, and the re-use of packaging can play an important role in achieving this. Nevertheless, reliable information about reusable packaging in Europe is lacking. To address such a gap, this paper proposes a methodology to collect data on packaging re-use, aimed at carrying out some preliminary assessment. This methodology can be applied in different geographical contexts (i.e., in different countries) and allows the creation of an inventory of comparable data for legislative compliance and statistical purposes. The suggested methodology has been applied to the Italian context, as a case study, resulting in a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the practice of packaging re-use in Italy. The emerged criticalities and limitations are finally discussed, and recommendations are given to get reliable and representative data.

The transition towards a circular economy, where the value of products, materials and resources is maintained for as long as possible, is an essential contribution to the European Union's efforts to develop a sustainable economy. Re-use of packaging items plays a key role in the achievement of this goal. The aim of this study is to assess the environmental impacts associated to the life cycle of Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBCs) as the number of uses (the so-called “rotations”) changes, by using the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology. The results of the contribution analysis show that the impacts of the life cycle of IBCs mainly come from the IBCs manufacturing, whereas the reconditioning process accounts for less than 20% of the overall impacts. Moreover, the system where IBCs are reconditioned and re-used has better environmental performance than the system where IBCs are used only once and then sent to recycling/disposal. The advantages of such a system increase with the number of rotations.

The present study analyses the effect of direct evaporative cooling (DEC) in reducing the number of discomfort hours in the area of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean. A total of 20 urban locations were selected in order to cover different climate conditions in the chosen area. Cooling degree hours and virtual climatic discomfort hours were calculated for the entire set of locations. Furthermore, the analysis is based on a sample building simulated in EnergyPlus for every location considering both a baseline (free running) and a direct evaporative cooling case. Night ventilation was also simulated in order to compare this technique with DEC. The chosen DEC model is the direct CelDekPad, a single stage evaporative cooler compatible with EnergyPlus. A psychrometric analysis was carried out and comfort boundaries identified for helping designers in considering DEC and night ventilation suitability from the early design phases (e.g. building programming).

This paper analyses the integration of a passive downdraught evaporative cooling (PDEC) system in existing residential buildings through a case study, an existing 3-storey building located in a small city near Turin. This study was focused on the technological integration of a PDEC system in residential buildings rather than on its actual applicability, which proved to be very low to Turin's climate. Three main aspects are considered: a) a matrix of PDEC systems integration related to building typologies; b) the results of a laboratory testing in site conditions for evaluating the performance of PDEC systems and correctly dimensioning the evaporative tower; c) the design of an integrated PDEC-Building solution, showing that the described approach can be applied to existing designed buildings.

In recent years, alternative food supply chains based on short distance production and delivery have been promoted as being more environmentally friendly than those applied by the traditional retailing system. An example is the supply of seasonal and possibly locally grown fruit and vegetables directly to customers inside a returnable crate (the so-called ‘box scheme’). In addition to other claimed environmental and economic advantages, the box scheme is often listed among the packaging waste prevention measures. To check whether such a claim is soundly based, a life cycle assessment was carried out to verify the real environmental effectiveness of the box scheme in comparison to the Italian traditional distribution. The study focused on two reference products, carrots and apples, which are available in the crate all year round. An experience of a box scheme carried out in Italy was compared with some traditional scenarios where the product is distributed loose or packaged at the large-scale retail trade. The packaging waste generation, 13 impact indicators on environment and human health and energy consumptions were calculated. Results show that the analysed experience of the box scheme, as currently managed, cannot be considered a packaging waste prevention measure when compared with the traditional distribution of fruit and vegetables. The weaknesses of the alternative system were identified and some recommendations were given to improve its environmental performance.

Solid waste management (SWM) is recognized worldwide as an important issue to deal with in pursuing liveability. In Rocinha, services coverage is lacking and unsatisfying in many sectors, including SWM, influenced by many challenges: high population density, lack of space and narrow streets, residents struggling with low incomes. In this part of the research, we investigate the reasons for this inadequacy. Waste flows have been analysed, the SWM system in Rocinha described, and an assessment on stakeholders and initiatives done. These steps help in defining properly the context, which gave us the tools to elaborate and suggest a new proposal for waste management, providing also a strategy for its implementation.

This paper focuses on an algorithmic approach to building design, based on the environmental and technological vision to the performance-driven design methodology. The performed analysis concerns to the development of an algorithm with the aim of optimizing, through dynamic energy simulation, the energy and technological definition of a building envelope, in order to minimize energy needs of sample residential buildings including a simple economic analysis including insulation costs and expected energy needs. The analysis has been done taking into account two different conditions: winter and summer seasons. In order to reach the objective, a support code in Python has been implemented to change dynamically the input data used in EnergyPlus, varying the scope of some boundary conditions that play a fundamental role in the envelope thermal design and affect the U-value. The approach and the code have been checked on a sample residential unit of about 70 m2 located in Torino Caselle. The considered input variables are the thickness of the insulation layer, the activation of the CNV (controlled natural ventilation) in summer, and the windows U-value. The proposed methodological approach and the developed script are applicable to different residential buildings according to a scalable vision and may hence constitute a first step towards the definition of an innovative tool to improve performances since early-design phases.

An innovative sleeper with a pre-stressed reinforced concrete inner structure wrapped by an outer shell manufactured with end-of-life tires powder and recycled plastics has been recently designed by the Greenrail company. The external protection is aimed at increasing its lifetime and reducing the maintenance requirements of the railway lines. This study evaluates the environmental performances of this sleeper, under different operational conditions, in comparison with traditional pre-stressed reinforced concrete sleepers, using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology.The assessment includes 16 environmental, energy, and human health impact categories. It is performed considering the following functional unit: 1 railway sleeper, including the fastenings of the rail to the sleeper and the portion of the track bed underneath it, over one year of operation. The evaluated system includes the sleeper production, its installation, the railway maintenance, the sleeper removal at its end-of-life and the final recovery. Moreover, the ballast is included in the analysis considering its mining and transportation to the railway line, the partial replacement during maintenance operations, the removal during a track renewal, and the end-of-life management.For the worst operational conditions of the Greenrail sleeper, the potential impacts between the two sleeper typologies differ by

Municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) is one of the leading technologies for municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment in Europe. Incineration bottom ash (IBA) is the main solid residue from MSWI, and its annual European production is about 20 million tons. The composition of IBA depends on the composition of the incinerated waste; therefore, it may contain significant amounts of ferrous and non-ferrous (NFe) metals as well as glass that can be recovered. Technologies for NFe metals recovery have emerged in IBA treatment since the 1990s and became common practice in many developed countries. Although the principles and used apparatus are nearly the same in all treatment trains, the differences in technological approaches to recovery of valuable components from IBA - with a special focus on NFe metals recovery - are summarized in this paper.

The European packaging market is forecast to grow 1.9% annually in the next years, with an increasing use of returnable packages. In this context, it is important to assess the real environmental effectiveness of the packaging re-use practice in terms of environmental impacts. This life cycle assessment aims to evaluate the environmental performances of reusable plastic crates (RPCs), which are used for the distribution of 36% of fruit and vegetables in Italy. RPCs can be re-used several times after a reconditioning process, i.e., inspection, washing, and sanitization with hot water and chemicals. The analysis was performed considering 12 impact categories, as well as the cumulative energy demand indicator and a tailor-made water consumption indicator. The results show that when the RPCs are used for less than 20 deliveries, the impacts of the life cycle are dominated by the manufacturing stage. By increasing the number of deliveries, the contribution of the reconditioning process increases, reaching 30&ndash, 70% of the overall impacts for 125 uses. A minimum of three deliveries of the RPCs is required in order to perform better than an alternative system where crates of the same capacity (but 60% lighter) are single-use. The same modeling approach can be used to evaluate the environmental sustainability of other types of returnable packages, in order to have a complete overview for the Italian context and other European countries.

Counterbalancing climate change is one of the biggest challenges for engineers around the world. One of the areas in which optimization techniques can be used to reduce energy needs, and with that the pollution derived from its production, is building design. With this study of a generic office located both in a northern country and in a temperate/Mediterranean site, we want to introduce a coding approach to dynamic energy simulation, able to suggest, from the early-design phases when the main building forms are defined, optimal configurations considering the energy needs for heating, cooling and lighting. Generally, early-design considerations of energy need reduction focus on the winter season only, in line with the current regulations, nevertheless a more holistic approach is needed to include other high consumption voices, e.g., for space cooling and lighting. The main considered design parameter is the WWR (window-to-wall ratio), even if further variables are considered in a set of parallel analyses (level of insulation, orientation, activation of low-cooling strategies including shading devices and ventilative cooling). Finally, the effect of different levels of occupancy was included in the analysis to regress results and compare the WWR with corresponding heating and cooling needs. This approach is adapted to Passivhaus design optimization, working on energy need minimisation acting on envelope design choices. The results demonstrate that it is essential to include, from the early-design configurations, a larger set of variables in order to optimize the expected energy needs on the basis of different aspects (cooling, heating, lighting, design choices). Coding is performed using Python scripting, while dynamic energy simulations are based on EnergyPlus.