Canada has emerged as the second-largest waste generator per capita, underscoring the urgent need for sustainable waste management solutions. The Region of Waterloo, Ontario, exemplifies a rapidly growing urban area where municipal solid waste management (MSWM) systems must evolve to meet environmental challenges. This study conducts a life cycle assessment of three MSWM scenarios in the Region. Scenario 1 models a business-as-usual system where the kitchen and yard waste go to composting, the recyclables are recycled, and non-reclables (residual waste) ends up in lanfill with energy recovery. Scenario 2 replaces landfilling and composting with incineration and anaerobic digestion, respectively. Scenario 3 is the same as Scenario 1 in terms of MSWM pathways except forreasing material recovery rates in line with extended producer responsibility (EPR) targets, thereby reducing the fraction of waste sent to landfill.The functional unit is set to management of 1 ton of municipal solid waste in the Region of Waterloo. Results show clear differences in environmental performance across the scenarios. Scenario 2, which uses incineration for residuals, has the highest environmental impact, particularly in terms of global warming potential over a 100-year time horizon (GWP100), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and eutrophication. In contrast, scenario 3, which introduces increased recycling rates in response to the region's EPR targets, performs the best overall, achieving substantial environmental savings; 134% reduction in GWP100 and 95% in photochemical ozone formation compared to the business-as-usual scenario. Overall, the findings emphasize how strategic choices in MSWM system design can lead to substantial environmental benefits or burdens.

Cosmetics and personal hygiene packaging play a critical role in the transition to a circular economy. These products are widely used and are increasingly targeted by regulatory frameworks such as the European Union Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, which emphasizes design-for-recycling, take-back systems, and producer responsibility.Due to their diverse packaging designs and product contents, cosmetics and personal hygiene packaging present challenges for recycling and end-of-life management. These products must appeal to consumers, while also enabling safe delivery of the cosmetic product during the products lifetime and intended use case. This work investigates how aesthetic elements and delivery mechanisms influence the recyclability of packaging, through a waste composition analysis of collected packaging design and composition, as well as the presence of residual cosmetic content. This data is crucial to address growing policy attention to packaging design for recycling, and providing detailed data on packaging types, formats, and residual contents in waste streams today. This dataset supports accurate forecasts for collection yields, recycling capacities and recyclability assessments, as well as ensuring efficient planning for sorting infrastructure, design improvements, and circular economy policy development for plastic cosmetics and personal hygiene packaging.The dataset presented in this work, was generated from approximately 270 kg of post-consumer cosmetics and personal hygiene primary plastic packaging collected via a company-managed retail take-back system in Denmark. The packaging waste, collected from 72 retail stores, was analyzed between March and May 2025. The dataset encompasses 6.503 individual packaging samples systematically categorized according to a four-tiered characterization approach by product brand ownership, packaging format, product content, and container colour. Each packaging sample was also weighed in its original returned (wet) state and again after cleaning (dry condition) to quantify residual product contents.The dataset is structured across three Excel sheets: (1) a coding scheme for packaging design, (2) a four-tiered characterization approach used to categorize the packaging samples, and (3) a main dataset containing raw measurements and statistical summaries, including means and standard deviations.Researchers, policymakers, industry stakeholders, and sustainability experts can use this dataset to inform precise forecasting, mapping, and analysis of recycling potentials and design practices. Moreover, the structured methodological approach serves as a replicable framework for generating comparable datasets across various geographical contexts, thus supporting broader efforts in transitioning cosmetic and personal hygiene packaging toward circularity.

Chinese waste incinerators have substantial excess capacity, and it has been suggested that waste from landfills be excavated to increase the energy recovery by using vacant incineration capacity. By means of life cycle assessment (LCA), we assess this suggestion in terms of its climate change impacts. Given the temporal properties of the issue, we used a dynamic LCA approach by specifying emissions and energy recovery for each year over a 100-year period. We then quantified climate change in terms of radiative forcing (W/m2) for each year, in contrast to a traditional LCA approach summarizing emissions and energy recovery over a 100-year period in terms of kg CO2-equivalents. We considered several waste compositions and a range of ages of landfilled waste. The results of dynamic LCA revealed that for a time horizon of 10-50 years, excavation and incineration of landfilled waste is beneficial only for reducing the cumulative radiative forcing if the waste is only 2-3 years old. Waste older than 4 years old should, in all cases, remain in the landfill from a climate change point of view. The traditional LCA approach revealed its shortcomings compared with the dynamic LCA approach. Considering technologies with time-distributed emissions and energy recoveries, we warn against indiscriminate use of the traditional approach when decisions are supposed to contribute to reducing climate change impacts to meet political targets set for the next few decades.

This study assessed the environmental impacts of producing activated carbon from technical lignin (TL-AC) for the removal of As(V) and Cd(II) from water, at the laboratory scale, and provided insights for future upscaling. An attributional LCA was initially conducted for seven laboratory-scale experimental setups, varying the temperature and the KOH:TL ratio. After identifying the best-performing scenario, three prospective (TL-2S-AC-3, TL-1S-AC-3, TL-1S-AC) and one baseline (Coal-1S-AC) scenarios were evaluated using a prospective life cycle assessment (pLCA). A global prospection identified favorable locations for upscaling the technology, and an emission intensity indicator was proposed to improve sustainability comparisons across adsorbent materials. The results indicated that KOH use and energy consumption were key contributors to the global warming potential (GWP). TL-AC-3 achieved the best sustainability among the laboratory scenarios, with the lowest emission intensity per mass of As(V) (1.5 x 10-4 kg CO2-eq g As- 1) and Cd(II) (3.4 x 10-4 kg CO2-eq g Cd- 1) removed, demonstrating environmental advantages over commercial and other materials. In prospective assessments, the TL-1S-AC-3 scenario, featuring a simplified one-step pretreatment, showed potential GWP reductions of up to 44.5 % (6.6 kg CO2-eq FU- 1), compared to the laboratory-scale results. Brazil emerged as a favorable location for industrial deployment, due to its renewable energy matrix, with GWP values below 11 kg CO2-eq FU- 1 across all prospective scenarios. These results highlighted TL-AC as an effective, lower-impact solution for arsenic and cadmium removal, with scalability potential in resource-abundant regions.

Cosmetics and personal hygiene packaging play a critical role in the transition to a circular economy. These products are widely used and are increasingly targeted by regulatory frameworks such as the European Union Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, which emphasizes design-for-recycling, take-back systems, and producer responsibility.Due to their diverse packaging designs and product contents, cosmetics and personal hygiene packaging present challenges for recycling and end-of-life management. These products must appeal to consumers, while also enabling safe delivery of the cosmetic product during the products lifetime and intended use case. This work investigates how aesthetic elements and delivery mechanisms influence the recyclability of packaging, through a waste composition analysis of collected packaging design and composition, as well as the presence of residual cosmetic content. This data is crucial to address growing policy attention to packaging design for recycling, and providing detailed data on packaging types, formats, and residual contents in waste streams today. This dataset supports accurate forecasts for collection yields, recycling capacities and recyclability assessments, as well as ensuring efficient planning for sorting infrastructure, design improvements, and circular economy policy development for plastic cosmetics and personal hygiene packaging.The dataset presented in this work, was generated from approximately 270 kg of post-consumer cosmetics and personal hygiene primary plastic packaging collected via a company-managed retail take-back system in Denmark. The packaging waste, collected from 72 retail stores, was analyzed between March and May 2025. The dataset encompasses 6.503 individual packaging samples systematically categorized according to a four-tiered characterization approach by product brand ownership, packaging format, product content, and container colour. Each packaging sample was also weighed in its original returned (wet) state and again after cleaning (dry condition) to quantify residual product contents.The dataset is structured across three Excel sheets: (1) a coding scheme for packaging design, (2) a four-tiered characterization approach used to categorize the packaging samples, and (3) a main dataset containing raw measurements and statistical summaries, including means and standard deviations.Researchers, policymakers, industry stakeholders, and sustainability experts can use this dataset to inform precise forecasting, mapping, and analysis of recycling potentials and design practices. Moreover, the structured methodological approach serves as a replicable framework for generating comparable datasets across various geographical contexts, thus supporting broader efforts in transitioning cosmetic and personal hygiene packaging toward circularity.

The construction industry significantly contributes to global environmental degradation, including carbon emissions and waste generation. This study presents a novel framework integrating material flow analysis (MFA) and life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) to systematically assess and improve material and waste flows during the construction phase of buildings. The framework aims to identify inefficiencies, optimise resource allocation, and enhance waste management practices on construction sites. A case study of a multifamily residential building in Denmark demonstrated the framework's applicability and effectiveness. The MFA revealed significant inefficiencies, with approximately 136.3 kg of waste generated per built square meter, corresponding to 9.1 % of delivered materials being wasted due to over-ordering and improper planning. The LCIA results showed that enhanced material sorting and increased recycling efforts could reduce environmental emissions and resource depletion by up to 69 %. Practical strategies such as closed-loop recycling for concrete and take-back schemes for bricks and wood pallets demonstrated clear environmental benefits, including reduced landfill waste and lowered impacts from new material production. The data obtained through the framework identifies key areas for improving on-site waste management. By implementing detailed monitoring and analysis, stakeholders can reduce waste through better planning, inventory control, and material handling practices. The framework also provides insights into the best treatment methods for different types of waste, ensuring materials are reused, recycled, or disposed of in the most environmentally friendly manner. Additionally, the framework offers realtime insights on material use, waste, and handling, helping stakeholders make informed decisions to reduce overuse and optimise resource allocation. Identifying key materials for waste efficiency supports site-specific interventions that lessen environmental impacts and improve waste management. The actionable data provided by the framework ensures compliance with environmental regulations and certification schemes, promotes resource efficiency, and supports the transition to a circular economy.

Textiles are complex materials made of multiple and blended resources, often assembled in unique configurations imbuing each textile with its own anatomy. These textile anatomies make the identification, separation, sorting, and recycling of post-consumer textiles, especially, difficult. While textile anatomy data is often retrievable for pre- and post-industrial textiles (off-cuts or rejects from manufacturing), it is often difficult to retrieve for textiles which have reached the consumer. The lack of data available on the textile anatomies of pre- and post-consumer textile waste skews predictions and market forecasts for the expected yields, capacities, and qualities of post-consumer textile sorting and recycling activities. This disrupts planning for sorting, removal of findings, and scaling of recycling technologies. To better plan for the innovation needs, market capacity, and policy levers needed to improve the efficiency of sorting and recycling activities, there is an urgent need for data on the unique anatomies of pre- and post-consumer textiles. This is especially important as the EU mandates that all member states must separately collect and treat post-consumer textiles beginning in 2025.Therefore, this database contains two datasets offering textile anatomies for more than 5000 separate garment samples from the post-industrial-pre consumer retail mass market (RMM) and the Post-Consumer Textile Waste Market (PCTWM). This database contains crucial data on each garment's fibre composition, finding presence, and layer presence. The two datasets are the results of two separate waste composition campaigns conducted in the Nordic Region in 2022: One focused on the textile anatomies of the RMM (4,495 samples) and the other on the PCTWM (1,248 samples). The RMM data was collected by sampling garments across mass market retailers in the Copenhagen municipality of DK during the spring/summer seasons of 2022. The PCTWM data was collected by sampling post-consumer textile waste bales from pre- and post-sorting lines at the SIPTEX sorting facility in Malmo, SE in the winter of 2022. In both datasets, surveys deployed via webapp were utilized to streamline sampling and ensure consistent recording of the fibre blends, number of findings present, and layers present. In the PCTWM dataset additional data is provided on the fibre composition of layers, as well as the placement and type of findings present.Each dataset in this database can be used by industrial ecologists, economists, and textile engineers to better forecast, map, and analyse the potential treatment of expected post-consumer textiles. Moreover, the methodology and approach to data gathering can be used as a blueprint for future regionalized databases throughout the European Union. The use of this database can be particularly useful to analyse the economic, environmental, and resource impacts of common garments as well as inform textile market analysis, design guidelines, and policy decisions for the treatment of post-consumer textile waste in the circular economy.

There is an urgent need to reduce the production and consumption of garments to curb the environmental emissions from the waste generated after their lifecycles. Nonetheless, even if drastic steps are taken today to reduce the production of textiles, the textiles already in circulation eventually need to be disposed of or recycled. To capture these garments and increase the quantity of textile available for recycling, the European Union (EU) has mandated the separate collection of the textile fraction across member states from 2025. However, collecting textiles for recycling does not guarantee that the collected textiles are recyclable. This study explores the recyclability of textiles by analysing the anatomy of textiles (linings, disruptors, adornments, and fibre blends) in Denmark and applies these findings to forecast the material available to different recycling routes in 2025. This study finds that in Denmark, after initial collection and sorting, textile complexity will likely result in the incineration of 36 % of textiles sent to recycling streams, 53 % will require disruptor removal, and 11 % will be available to different recycling routes. When the recycling capacity for high-quality recycling is considered, only a minor part (<2 %) of textiles in the Danish market can result in high-quality fibre-to-fibre recycling. These results emphasize the importance of considering textile anatomy both when designing textiles and determining recycling pathways. Moreover, our findings underscore that the Circular Economy (CE) transition cannot rely on recycling alone; instead, it must invest in avoidance and reuse approaches in addition to improved sorting and pretreatment facilities within Europe to best utilize the textiles currently in circulation.

Thermal technologies have gained increasing attention in sludge management. This study applied life cycle assessment to assess the impacts to climate change of ten technological configurations (TCs) treating sludge with incineration, gasification, and pyrolysis. We used distributions of process parameters for quantifying the associated uncertainties and considered different energy exchanges. In a 55 %-fossil energy system, the TCs with various thermal processes showed impacts to climate change in a wide range of -2000 to 2000 kg CO2 eq/t total solid. A probabilistic comparison indicated that with a 10 %-fossil energy system, TCs with gasification and pyrolysis showed a > 95 % probability of performing better than TCs with incineration. Energy consumption and dewatering parameters contributed significantly to the uncertainty due to their large variation and sensitivity. This study emphasized the potential of optimizing key parameters and provided evidence from a climate change perspective for better technological selection and development in sludge management.

Food waste is a significant environmental issue today, as it contributes to depleting natural resources and greenhouse gas emissions from improper management. To address this, alternative food waste management and recovery strategies must be developed to promote nutrient recirculation and move towards decarbonization. University campuses could play a crucial role in pioneering such strategies, through pilot studies and implementation of effective waste management. The aim of this study is to devise a food waste management strategy that provides a more circular and decarbonized economy. A case example was developed based on ITU Ayazağa Campus, Turkey, with annual separated food waste of 577 tonne per year. A Life Cycle Assessment was conducted using the EASETECH software. Four scenarios were evaluated: anaerobic digestion, composting, incineration, and landfill. Of these, incineration resulted in the highest CO 2 ‐eq savings, but lacked decoupling and circularity of resources. Conversely, anaerobic digestion demonstrated the highest circularity and lowest toxicity. Based on these findings, anaerobic digestion was selected for further investigation. Economic transactions for the anaerobic digestion system's business models were analyzed, including revenues, municipality fees, and operating costs. The new economic model is expected to align with circular economy strategies and promote stakeholder collaboration as a significant social outcome.

Institutions such as university communities can be considered miniature versions of the larger society in which they exist. Nonetheless even though it should be easier to manage waste at an institution, their waste management (WM) programmes are typically lack an overall goal for improving environmental impact and are not optimally structured or operated. In part this is due to a lack of a framework that promotes a goal-oriented WM strategy. For instance, zero waste (ZW) to landfill studies have gained prominence in recent years, but generally there is a lack of clear guidance on how to carry out ZW strategies effectively at either, municipal or institutional levels. To fill this gap, this study aims to provide a framework that enables institutions to develop a goal-oriented WM strategy applying the principles of material flow analysis and life cycle assessment. The framework assumes that no prior data are available, and a study will therefore begin by collecting primary data followed by secondary data. The case study is presented in this article, along with the introduction of the framework, using ZW management scenarios in the Istanbul Technical University Ayazağa Campus. The results of the case study show that, it is not possible to achieve ZW to landfill on university campuses. And simply diverting waste from landfill (min 74% to max ~100%) does not necessarily lead to circularity (min 20% to max ~66%) or directly address public attitudes towards ZW goals.

Technological comparison and system modelling of sewage sludge treatment are important in terms of sustainable development and climate change mitigation. Dewatering and drying are important processes for reducing volume for transportation and often a requirement for further sludge treatment. Inventory data on mass transfers and material and energy consumptions are therefore crucial in improving and understanding sludge management systems. Reviewing the scientific literature (2003–2021) revealed 55 and 21 datasets on dewatering and drying of sewage sludge, respectively. The scarcity of data did not allow for identifying detailed relationships between inputs and outputs for the technologies, but the reviewed data can serve as the first port of call when planning sludge management. The average total solid (TS) content obtained was statistically different for mechanical dewatering (MDW), deep dewatering, bio-drying (BDR) and thermal drying (TDR). Loss of volatile solids (VS) during dewatering is barely described, but a substantial VS loss was observed for TDR (8%) and BDR (27%). The use of chemical agents in MDW showed typical values of 5–15 g kg−1 TS. The use of energy is low for MDW (average of 0.12 and 0.26 kWh kg−1 TS for raw and digested sludges, respectively) but substantially higher for TDR (average of 3.8 kWh kg−1 TS). The justified inventory data for sludge dewatering and drying provide essential support to system modelling and technological comparison in future studies, but additional data from full-scale plants on energy consumption and the composition of removed water are strongly requested to improve the inventory.

The goal of neutrality in greenhouse gas emissions has intensified the search for renewable fuels. However, it is crucial to ensure sustainability of new technologies before proposing their implementation. This study proposes the use of life-cycle assessment (LCA) as an intermediary tool to identify critical hotspots in the exploration of hydrothermal pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass, followed by biochemical methane potential assessment. Brewer s spent grain (BSG) was investigated, and laboratory-scale results were applied in an attributional assessment model with business-as-usual serving as the baseline. The LCA revealed that assumptions made in the lab could pose limitations. In Brazil, the two-stage co-digestion of pretreated hydrothermal BSG showed prom-ising prospects, with a reduction to a new value of-54 kg CO2-eq Ton- 1 BSG compared to 90 kg CO2-eq Ton- 1 BSG in the business-as-usual scenario. Within the top ten global beer producing countries, only Brazil and Spain demonstrated potential for exploring this proposal.

System modelling of sewage sludge (SS) treatment attracts a growing interest for better comparison and optimisation of technologies. However, SS parameters need to be generalised to be used in holistic assessments, since scattered data may inhibit the development and interpretation of system models. A review of the literature on SS parameters relevant to modelling SS treatment systems revealed 208 datasets published in 162 publicly available scientific papers. We treated thickened and dewatered sludge in the same data analysis, but in some cases, this was an incorrect assumption. The compositional data showed significant variations, but most of the data subscribed to a lognormal distribution, albeit with varying levels of significance. On average, the thickened sludge contained 3.3 ± 1.7% total solid (TS), and the dewatered sludge contained 21.0 ± 6.7% TS. For the combined data, the average Ash content was 32.4 ± 11.8% of TS. Other characteristic parameters were the lower heating value (LHV) of 22.1 ± 2.1 MJ kg −1 volatile solid (VS) and the biochemical methane potential (BMP) of 0.25 ± 0.11 m 3 CH 4 kg −1 VS. Fertiliser-related elements were on average 53.3 ± 9.3% C in VS, 6.8 ± 2.2% N in VS, 6.7 ± 2.4% P in Ash and 1.7 ± 1.3% K in Ash. The data reviewed herein provide a good basis for assessing the generality of individual SS data and for selecting key parameters for modelling SS treatment systems. However, the review reveals a need for the better characterisation of SS in the future.

Sewage sludge (SS) management remains a challenge across the world. We quantified the potential climate change impacts of eight conventional technology configurations (TCs) for SS treatment and disposal by considering four different energy exchanges and using a life cycle assessment (LCA) model that employed uncertainty distributions for 104 model parameters. All TCs showed large climate change loads and savings (net values ranging from 123 to 1148 kg CO2-eq/t TS) when the energy exchange was with a fossil-based energy system, whereas loads and savings were approximately three times lower when the energy exchange was with a renewable energy system. Uncertainty associated with the climate change results was more than 100% with fossil-energy exchange and low TS content of SS but was lower for renewable energy. Landfilling had the greatest climate change impact, while thermal drying with incineration had the highest probability of providing better climate change performance than other TCs. The global sensitivity analysis identified nine critical technological parameters. Many of them can be easily measured for relevant SS and technology levels to improve specific estimates of climate change impact. When all scenarios were optimized to the 20% best cases, thermal drying with incineration outperformed the other TCs. This paper contributes to better quantifying the climate change impacts of different technologies used for sludge treatment given changing energy systems and identifies crucial parameters for further technological development.

The biological treatment of municipal sewage sludge, including anaerobic digestion and composting, was reviewed with the purpose of establishing inventory data to address all the inputs and outputs related to sludge treatment. We identified 193 scientific papers, resulting in 64 datasets on anaerobic digestion and 35 datasets on composting. For anaerobic digestion, biogas production varied significantly (up to a factor of four) depending on the sludge. A useful correlation was identified between the amount of methane produced and the degradation of volatile solids. According to statistical tests, no significant differences were found in biogas production for mesophilic and thermophilic digesters. In addition, methane content varied significantly, and very few data were available for digestate composition or for energy consumption and recovery. For composting, accurate estimates relating to the degradation of sewage sludge could not be made, since organic bulking materials were part of the final composted product. Data on emissions to air are currently scarce, which points to the need for more published information. The inventory data evaluated herein are useful in the feasibility assessment of the biological treatment of sewage sludge, for comparing technologies, for example in LCA studies and as a basis for evaluating the performance of a specific biological sludge treatment plant. However, a great deal of the reviewed data originated from laboratory and pilot-scale studies, and so there is a need for more complete datasets on the performance of full-scale technologies, in order to establish full inventories and identify differences in technologies and operational conditions.

Modern intensive agriculture worldwide is generating increasing environmental and economic pressures that hinder its sustainable development. This study proposes the joint use life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) to evaluate irrigated chickpea production (ICP) and the eco-environmental situation of dry farming (DFCP). Data are collected from 625 chickpea farmers in in the Kermanshah province of Iran. The most updated approach, LC-IMPACT, is applied for the first time globally in agricultural activity LCA. Results indicate that most impact categories of ICP have higher rates than DFCP. On-Field emissions and pesticides in DFCP, and nitrogen and phosphate in ICP, are identified as the main hotspots. The LCC analysis reveals that the total emissions cost (EC) for DFCP and ICP is 130 and 53 $ per one tone of chickpea (1TCP−1), respectively. Additionally, the LCC for DFCP and ICP is computed as 837 and 666 $ 1TCP−1. The eco-efficiency rate of damage categories in DFCP shows a better situation compared to the ICP scenario. The findings indicate that the DFCP scenario exhibits a higher level of environmental friendliness compared to the ICP scenario. Finally, it can be concluded that the joint use of LC-IMPACT assessment method and LCC can contribute to achieving better eco-environmental conditions in chickpea production.

Wastewater treatment is an important source of direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which some wastewater operators report and account for CO2-eq impacts through carbon footprint evaluations. We investigated the challenges with GHG emissions' accounting of three state-of-the-art energy-efficient wastewater resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) and reviewed their CO2 accounting reports. Our study aimed to highlight the major contributors and factors to estimate emissions, including direct N2O and CH4 emissions and propose recommendations for public reporting of CO2 accounting of WRRFs. We categorised emissions as direct (scope 1), background (scope 2), downstream and avoided emissions (scope 3A and 3B) and evaluated how a change in emission factor may affect how close the WRRFs are to reaching CO2 neutrality. The results show that electricity consumption and direct emissions constitute between 20 and 70% of actual CO2-eq emissions and therefore need careful consideration. All three plants have increasingly offset scope 2 emissions over 2014-2019, resulting in a total reduction of approximately 3211 tons CO2-eq, corresponding to 72% of their needed cuts by 2030 set by the Danish government. No standard factors are used across the plants to estimate emissions. We propose some general recommendations that wastewater operators can apply to correctly report and account for CO2-eq emissions. We also recommend that operators move their long-term focus from CO2 neutrality to CO2-eq reduction and make an effort to measure and quantify scope 1 direct emissions properly. A tax on N2O emissions should be introduced in future policies.