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Recycling
Special Issues
Improving Source Separation for Municipal Solid Waste(MSW)-Global Lessons
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Improving Source Separation for Municipal Solid Waste(MSW)-Global Lessons

A special issue of Recycling (ISSN 2313-4321).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2019) | Viewed by 26475

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Giovanni De Feo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering (DIIN), University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
Interests: circular economy; environmental communication; life-cycle assessment; recycling; waste management; water and wastewater in ancient civilizations; water supply
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The source-separation of municipal solid waste (MSW) is commonly considered a preliminary and compulsory step to recycling activities. Separate collection programs involve many actors, such as citizens, collection enterprises, municipalities, who often speak “different languages” because they have different perspectives from which they look at the problem. Often, the final results are low percentages of separate collection and/or a poor quality of the source-separated materials, with consequent problems in terms of recycling activities as well as economic drawbacks (due to the additional costs of selection).

MSW source-separation, due to its intrinsic nature, is a multidisciplinary issue. In fact, it involves technical aspects, because designing and managing separate collection programs involves an appropriate combination of several variables such as vehicles, personnel, containers, bags, infrastructures, model adopted (e.g. kerbside collection, bring system), etc. It poses economic problems because the collection service has to be offered with the minimum economic impact for the citizen but assuring a good level of quality. Since the collection starts with citizens, understanding their knowledge, behaviour, attitudes, awareness is fundamental for the success of the system. Finally, it is commonly accepted that nowadays everything has to be done to lower as much as possible the environmental impact.

Therefore, experts from academia and industry, designers, architects, engineers, scientists, and others are invited to share their theoretical and applied knowledge on the different and interrelated aspects of MSW source-separation. In this sense, collaboration across disciplines is encouraged. This Special Issue will document contributions from all over the world in order to provide a scientific and practical improvement for the sector.

Prof. Dr. Giovanni De Feo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Recycling is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • communication
  • costs
  • environmental impacts
  • MSW
  • municipal solid waste
  • personnel
  • separate collection
  • sociology
  • source separation
  • vehicles

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 1553 KiB  
Article
Coloured Plastic Bags for Kerbside Collection of Waste from Households—To Improve Waste Recycling
by Louise Sörme, Elin Voxberg, Joacim Rosenlund, Sara Jensen and Anna Augustsson
Recycling 2019, 4(2), 20; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/recycling4020020 - 04 May 2019
Cited by 19 | Viewed by 8499
Abstract
Today, considerable amounts of resources are landfilled or incinerated, and recyclable materials such as metal, glass, plastic, and paper are disposed of as residual waste instead of being sorted into recyclable fractions. Recycling is one way of transitioning towards a circular economy and [...] Read more.
Today, considerable amounts of resources are landfilled or incinerated, and recyclable materials such as metal, glass, plastic, and paper are disposed of as residual waste instead of being sorted into recyclable fractions. Recycling is one way of transitioning towards a circular economy and a more resource-efficient society. However, in many older cities there is insufficient space for waste bins, which makes waste sorting difficult. The aim of the study was to test how the introduction of a new kerbside collection system, using different-coloured plastic bags, would influence the amounts of residual waste and separately collected food waste. Coloured plastic bags were introduced in an old city centre in Kalmar, in the southeast of Sweden. This type of kerbside collection was applied to 38 apartments with a total of 87 residents for four weeks. Results show that residual waste decreased directly by 15 percent and the collected amount of food waste increased directly by 35 percent. The residents perceived that the sorting system facilitated sorting and that the sorting of recyclable materials increased. Kerbside collection, close to properties, seemed to be an important factor in reducing the amount of residual waste, leading to increased sorting, and hence improved recycling. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Improving Source Separation for Municipal Solid Waste(MSW)-Global Lessons)
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11 pages, 201 KiB  
Article
The Perceived Role of Financial Incentives in Promoting Waste Recycling—Empirical Evidence from Finland
by Beatrice Abila and Jussi Kantola
Recycling 2019, 4(1), 4; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/recycling4010004 - 10 Jan 2019
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 10817
Abstract
Placing emphasis on promoting the reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery and repair of waste has been a critical aspect of the sustainable waste management agenda. Considering recycling, an environmentally friendly and sustainable waste management option, monetary rewards are in place for certain recyclable municipal [...] Read more.
Placing emphasis on promoting the reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery and repair of waste has been a critical aspect of the sustainable waste management agenda. Considering recycling, an environmentally friendly and sustainable waste management option, monetary rewards are in place for certain recyclable municipal waste materials in Finland. The study investigates consumers’ perception about the role of financial incentives in effecting the recycling of municipal solid waste materials in Finland. The study also considers drivers for recycling municipal solid waste on the basis of behavioural change factors, such as environmental risk, behavioural economics, resource value, economic benefit, convenience, knowledge, legislation and belief. It further determines the association between income-earning consumers and non-income-earning consumers in their perception of financial incentives for recycling. The empirical results from the study confirm that the role of financial incentive is important in accelerating the recycling of municipal solid waste. A weak-to-positive relationship exists between drivers for recycling municipal solid waste and recycling behaviour. There exists no statistically significant difference in the means of the perceived role of financial incentives for recycling in the two groups. The introduction of financial incentives for other recyclable wastes is required in order to boost consumers’ participation in the recycling of municipal solid waste. The need to pay more attention to intrinsic and extrinsic factors, as they affect the participation members of the society in the recycling of municipal solid waste, is paramount. This has become necessary in ensuring sustainable waste management in Finland. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Improving Source Separation for Municipal Solid Waste(MSW)-Global Lessons)
17 pages, 1428 KiB  
Article
A Statistical Regression Method for Characterization of Household Solid Waste: A Case Study of Awka Municipality in Nigeria
by Obiora B. Ezeudu, Chigbogu G. Ozoegwu and Christian N. Madu
Recycling 2019, 4(1), 1; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/recycling4010001 - 08 Jan 2019
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 6294
Abstract
This work contributes to waste management from two major perspectives. Firstly, waste generation in a previously not-studied location—Awka municipality—was sampled and characterized. Secondly, the characterization was done with improved accuracy using a new method called zero-intercept first-order polynomial regression. The proposed method arrives [...] Read more.
This work contributes to waste management from two major perspectives. Firstly, waste generation in a previously not-studied location—Awka municipality—was sampled and characterized. Secondly, the characterization was done with improved accuracy using a new method called zero-intercept first-order polynomial regression. The proposed method arrives at composition values and per capita values through polynomial regression that considers sampled waste generation data and household size as regressors, respectively. There are no constituents when no waste is generated and there is no per capita waste when household size is zero, therefore, zero-intercept was imposed on the proposed linear regression approach. An 820 by 11 data matrix from a ten-day sampling in Awka Municipality was used to illustrate the proposed approach; eighty percent of the data was used for training, while twenty percent was used for testing. The results from the proposed method proved more accurate when compared with traditional averaging techniques. The results established for the study area are equally in consonance with known results for similar Nigerian locations, such as organic (73.2%), plastic (8.0%), and recyclable (20.3%). The calculated specific loose volume, specific compact volume, the loose bulk density, and compact bulk density are 2.0 × 10−3 m3/kg, 9.9 × 10−4 m3/kg, 500.0 kg∙m−3, and 1010.2 kg∙m−3, respectively. The waste generation rate is 416.9 g/capita/day, the organic waste generation rate is 307.1 g/capita/day, the recyclable waste generation rate is 83.0 g/capita/day, paper and textile waste generation rate is 25.2 g/capita/day, loose waste volume rate is 9.02 × 10−1 dm3/capita/day, and compact waste volume rate is 4.51 × 10−1 dm3/capita/day. The solid waste characters were compared among the three income groups of low, middle, and high income earners and the observed trends are literature compliant with city-specific coloration. City-wide estimations were made based on demography, literature, and the established results that would aid waste management planning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Improving Source Separation for Municipal Solid Waste(MSW)-Global Lessons)
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