With the increasing manufacturing of electric vehicles, car battery recycling is crucial for environmental sustainability. The disassembly of car batteries includes critical health hazards for the operator, due to potential chemical reactions or physical injuries. These reasons make robots particularly interesting for automatic disassembly. This paper proposes a systematic approach to automation and human–robot cooperation in car battery disassembly tasks with a case study on screw removal. A novel parameter is proposed to evaluate whether a human operator or a robot is more appropriate for each specific task, considering both performance and associated risks. The proposed metrics are validated with an experimental example, in which the performance of a robot and a human on a screw-removal task is compared numerically using statistical methods. The advantages and disadvantages of both options are examined through the application and show how the new performance criterion effectively provides insights into the distribution of tasks between humans and robots.

This paper demonstrates tensions between national environmental policies and international free trade rules and traces business reactions to environmentalism through a study of the Can War, a controversy over a Danish ban on beverage cans from 1970 to 2002. At its core was a conflict between Denmark and the European Economic Community (EEC, later the European Union, EU) over free trade versus environmental objectives. This study of the Can War demonstrates how environmental concerns were entangled with national and economic interests, but also how brewers, retailers, and packaging producers used environmental and economic arguments in pragmatic ways and adapted to changing political and economic environments. Thus, the paper adds to the literature on the formative years of environmental politics, with a focus on business interests and a conflict between a nation-state and the EEC in a period when environmental concerns gained political momentum yet remained contested in a system based on free trade. This study also adds to the literature on waste-handling by demonstrating how the Danish return system changed from one based on reuse to one based on recycling; it further shows how beverage cans went from banned to uncontested, everyday objects. Through a comparison with Sweden, the case shows how national businesses influenced the design of new deposit and return systems for single-use packaging, wherein refillable glass bottles became marginalized. Overall, the study offers an understanding of the intricate relationships between environmental policies, business interests, consumer habits, and competing container materials, with aluminum as the winner.

Pro-environmental behavior, including waste sorting and recycling, involves a combination of future-oriented (futureness) and other-oriented (otherness) attributes. Inspired by the perspective of intergenerational choice, this work explores whether eliciting concerns for future others could increase public support for recycling policy and recycling behavior. Study 1 consisted of an online random controlled trial and a laboratory experiment. In Study 1A (N = 400), future other-concern was primed using a static text manipulation, whereas in Study 1B (N = 192), a dynamic virtual manipulation was employed. The results showed that people in the conditions that elicited future other-concern reported greater household recycling intentions and more actual recycling behavior than those in the control conditions. Study 2A (N = 467) and Study 2B (N = 600) generalized this effect on the acceptance of the ‘Certain Time Certain Place’ waste sorting policy in China. Consistent with the intergenerational choice model, envisioning the future of subsequent generations is more impactful in gaining policy approval than merely envisioning a future time. These findings provide a new method for promoting public policy approval and recycling behavior, suggesting that people could become environmentally friendly when they are guided to consider future others.

This article examines small and medium-sized scrap and wastepaper enterprises in Finland. They operated in the margins of the nation’s industrial economy during the twentieth century but pioneered many of the business models and practices that, in the last few decades, have become crucial elements of the circular economy. We study why and how they tried to develop profitable business models, and why some succeeded while others failed. We give particular attention to the business environment where they operated and argue that legislation, values, purchasing cartels, and other outside factors had a crucial impact on their profitability. We base our analysis partly on published company histories and other earlier research and partly on interviews and the extensive and usually open collections of business archives. Those sources provide us with the often-lacking inside view of small and medium-sized enterprises in the circular economy business and show how determined these companies were to defend their interests.

This qualitative research study investigates the effectiveness of gamified handicrafts as an inspiration for teenagers to practice recycling and upcycling. The study utilises focus group interviews and thematic analysis to explore the perceptions and experiences of 15 teenagers who participated in an educational programme called Edcraft, which combines gamification and handicrafts to promote sustainable practices among youth. The findings reveal that Edcraft successfully motivates teenagers to engage in recycling and upcycling activities through its gamified approach, which includes challenges, rewards and social interaction. Themes such as ‘social connections are vital’, ‘convenience and rewards are significant motivators’, ‘gamified activities help attract and engage teens’ and ‘environmental knowledge is crucial to prolonging recycling’ emerged from the thematic analysis. The results also highlight the positive impact of Edcraft on teenagers’ attitudes towards the environment and their willingness to adopt sustainable behaviours beyond the programme. The implications of these findings for promoting environmental education and sustainability among teenagers are discussed, and recommendations for future research and practice are provided.

The application of ceramic membranes is limited by the high cost of raw materials and the sintering process at high temperatures. To overcome these drawbacks, the present study investigated both the preparation of ceramic membranes using cost-effective raw materials and the possibility of recycling the membranes for the treatment of oily wastewater. Ceramic membranes with a pore size of 0.29–0.67 μm were prepared successfully at temperatures as low as 1000–1100°C by a simple pressing route using lowcost base materials including diatomite, kaolin, bentonite, talc, sodium borate, and barium carbonate. The typical steady-state flux, fouling resistance, and oil-rejection rate of the low-cost virgin membranes sintered at 1000°C were 2.5 × 10−5 m3m−2s−1 at 303 kPa, 63.5%, and 84.1%, respectively, with a feed oil concentration of 600 mg/L. A simple burn-out process of the used membranes at 600°C in air resulted in >95% recovery of the specific surface area (SSA) of the virgin membranes, a significantly increased steady-state flux, decreased fouling resistance, and increased oil-rejection rate. The typical steady-state flux, fouling resistance, and oil-rejection rate of the low-cost ceramic membrane sintered at 1000°C and subsequently heat treated at 600°C for 1 h in air after the first filtration were 5.4 × 10−5 m3m−2s−1 at 303 kPa, 27.1%, and 92.9%, respectively, with a feed oil concentration of 600 mg/L. The present results suggest that the low-cost ceramic membranes used for oily wastewater filtration can be recycled by simple heat-treatment at 600°C in air. As the fouling resistance of the low-cost ceramic membranes decreased with a decrease in pore size, the preferred pore size of the membranes for oily wastewater filtration is <0.4 μm.

In this article, the authors investigate the effectiveness of glass and metal recycling in Roman towns. The comparison of sealed primary deposits (reflecting what was in use in Roman towns) with dumping sites shows a marked drop in glass and metal finds in the dumps. Although different replacement ratios and fragmentation indices affect the composition of the assemblages recovered in dumps, recycling appears to have played a fundamental role, very effectively reintroducing into the productive chain most glass and metal items before their final discard. After presenting a case study from Pompeii, the authors examine contexts from other sites that suggest that recycling practices were not occasional. In sum, recycling should be considered as an effective and systematic activity that shaped the economy of Roman towns.

Increasingly plastic pollution is being recognized as a critical environmental and human health threat of unprecedented scale and complexity. While trends in plastic production and consumption are still on the rise, the negative effects of uncollected, mismanaged, dumped or incinerated plastic waste are causing profound impacts on the environment, oceans, climate and food chains compromising the quality of life for humans and other living beings, with expected cumulative negative effects for the near future. Particularly populations in the Global South, where new markets for plastic consumer goods have rapidly emerged over the past 30 years, while waste management, in general, has remained precarious, underfunded or inexistent, directly experience the burdens of plastic pollution. The emerging environmental problems are particularly visible in these regions and so are also possible solutions and alternatives. Approximately 20 million informal workers already recover plastic waste from the garbage in the Global South, usually working under precarious, risky and poorly paid conditions. The literature claims that they represent a workforce that if recognized, integrated and valued and under decent work conditions and fair remuneration could potentially increase significantly the capturing of plastic waste and reduce the amount of fugitive plastics. This review paper applies an anthropogenic global environmental change theory lens to discuss the key challenges in managing plastic waste and global plastic pollution, uncovering major causes, impacts from dispersion and leakage of plastics into soil, water and air, recognizing the relational and geographic perspectives of plastic waste. A concerted effort is required to coordinating policies and technological solutions in order to strengthening, fund and recognize the waste picker sector as a key protagonist in addressing this waste issue.

Composite filaments are getting increased attention in additive manufacturing (AM). More and better solutions for filament production are needed to assist researchers in discovering new materials capable of producing AM-made high-performance parts. This article presents a method for producing composite filament, including an open-source, low-cost automatic composite feeder designed to increase the accuracy and quality of the filament. The feeder includes a fibre screw designed through an iterative prototyping process to accurately control the filament's fibre percentage while reducing lumps' occurrence in a single step. An experiment evaluating the quality of filament made of Polylactic Acid (PLA) and carbon fibre (CF) tested the use of the feeder compared to manual mixing. Filament with a nominal diameter of 2.85mm with 4.5%, 7.9%, 11.2% and 14.5% CF was made. The results suggest that the composite feeder improved the filament quality. The filament diameter RMSE value was reduced from 0.08 to 0.06 and 0.15 to 0.13 for both 4.5% and 11.2%, respectively. The article concludes that the feeder design may help researchers develop and discover new materials while improving the quality of the filament.

This article examines the extent to which tort law can be used to incentivise the creation of the circular value chain and the design of products that live up to the requirements of the circular economy. In doing so, this article focuses in particular on the concepts of product liability and value chain liability. It shows that whereas the product liability framework has clearly been thought out to fit the linear value chain, central product liability concepts are also sufficiently flexible to be able to take in circularity considerations. The same goes for the concept of value chain liability. This article also shows how both types of liability become intertwined in the circular value chain.