Australia’s circular economy transition depends on local governments, yet council-level readiness remains uneven and poorly understood. This study develops a Circular Economy Readiness Index (CERI) to assess whether 520 Australian councils across six states demonstrate the service, infrastructure, governance, engagement, and circularity conditions required to progress beyond conventional waste management. Using systematic content analysis of publicly available council information, the study coded household waste services, infrastructure access, policy evidence, public engagement, and higher-order circular practices. Results show that general waste and mixed recycling services are widespread, while FOGO provision remains inconsistent and separate household glass collection is rare outside Victoria. Chi-square tests and Kruskal–Wallis analysis confirmed significant state-level variation in readiness. Cluster analysis identified four readiness profiles: foundational service-limited, recycling and organics-transition, strategy-led, and community-engaged circularity councils. The findings demonstrate that circular economy implementation requires differentiated policy support, regional infrastructure planning, circular procurement, and community-based sustainability education.Kindly check and confirm whether the inserted city name is correct in affiliations 2 and 3.Yes, the city names in affiliations 2 and 3 have been checked and revised accordingly.Kindly check and confirm that the affiliation 1 has been correctly identified.Yes, affiliation 1 has been checked and revised accordingly.Graphical abstract is mandatory for publication in this journal. Please provide the graphical abstract.Yes, the graphical abstract has been prepared and attached as requested.
Energy-intensive processes such as pasteurization and clean-in-place (CIP) operations strongly influence Scope 1–2 carbon emissions (CEs) in a fruit juice plant (FJP). In this study, the operational and environmental impacts of implementing green–lean production (GLP) practices in a FJP were evaluated, and the relationship between overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) and Scope 1–2 CE was examined using year-round industrial operational data. Production improvements resulting from the implementation of kaizen, 5S, SMED, and TPM were associated with reductions in waste and unplanned downtime, as well as improvements in operational efficiency. Following the implementation of GLP, OEE increased from 58.5 to 71.6
Recent studies show that supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) in a power cycle could perform much better than air or steam power cycles and have a reduced negative effect on the environment, making it a promising solution for future power generation systems. The main objective of the present study is to optimize and compare the 4E (energy, exergy, economic, and environmental) performances of seven different configurations of the sCO2 Brayton cycle integrated into a natural gas-fired power plant (NFGPP) for large-scale power generation. These configurations have the same output of 10 MW but differ in the incorporated enhancement processes. The procedure of this study involves the development of mathematical models and a multi-objective approach to find the optimal design of each configuration. Then, the seven optimized configurations were compared to choose the best layout to be adopted in this kind of thermal plant. The innovation of this study lies in the multi-objective optimization performed to identify the optimal trade-offs between system efficiencies and net present value (NPV), and in the specific configurations chosen for the analyses. The obtained results show that the NFGPP employing the optimized intercooling sCO2 Brayton cycle achieved the highest energy and exergy efficiencies at 60.75% and 57.31%, respectively. Furthermore, this layout emitted the least CO2 at 0.99 kg/s for each 10 MW of generated power. The results also demonstrate that the recompression configuration offered the highest NPV at 264.78 M$ over 35 years, with moderate capital costs (9.56 M$) and operation/maintenance costs (0.3823 M$/year).
This study reports the synthesis of silicon–graphite composites using a scalable method inspired by the spherical natural graphite (SNG) transformation process. Composites were prepared by mixing 10 wt.
The blast-furnace ironmaking route remains the most widely used method for producing iron, but it generates significant environmental pollution from CO2 emissions. Industrial players are working to develop environmentally friendly technologies, including bridging technologies to reduce CO2 emissions. These range from developing and implementing modified or entirely new ironmaking processes to creating raw materials that enhance iron and steelmaking efficiencies or bypass certain stages in the ironmaking process, thereby decreasing CO2 emissions and energy use. In this research, iron production from iron ore pellets was studied using the induction furnace. Preliminary results using hematite–goethite pellets as feed material showed that up to 73
