Documents waste management 122 results

"The European Union (EU) relies on imported raw materials to manufacture renewable energy, digital, mobility, aerospace, and defence technologies. A circular economy can mitigate this critical dependency, for example by recycling materials or remanufacturing products locally. These resource efficiency strategies, however, require new supply chain configurations supported by research and innovation. While this is taking place in few selected supply chains, notably lithium-ion battery technology, little is known about circularity for most critical raw materials and their applications. Information is scattered across industry players and disciplinary competences, or not publicly available due to confidentiality concerns. This article presents a case study on titanium metal circularity in the aviation and defence sectors. The results inform three industrial policy recommendations to mitigate the risk of supply disruption in the EU, aggravated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Based on the case study, a methodological framework is proposed to guide future research on circularity for resource security. This subject requires urgent attention to achieve EU strategic autonomy objectives, against the background of climate change, resource depletion and waste management challenges in a complex geopolitical landscape."

"This article analyzes the formation of the legal subjectivity of recyclable material pickers in a neoliberal scenario, using Evgeni Pachukanis' critique of legal form as a theoretical-methodological reference. Through a comparative case study between the cities of São Paulo and Mexico City, the research examines how these workers have integrated into the reverse logistics systems of plastic packaging. Throughout the study, a triangulation of qualitative data collection techniques was used, such as literature review, document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation. The comparative case study indicates that, regardless of the regulation of recyclable pickers' work, in both cities, the existence of these workers has been functional for capital, which invites them into the "living room" as "entrepreneurial" legal subjects, limiting their political class organization."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"In advanced economies the ‘greening' of the economy is widely seen as promising extensive job creation and upskilling, alongside its other benefits. In popular and policy rhetoric, the growing importance of ‘green skills' is asserted frequently. This study critically examines these claims within the context of the electronic waste management sector in the United Kingdom. Drawing on the cases of a non-profit organisation and a small private enterprise in North West England, we observe that despite government support for developing skills in e-waste, both the development and utilisation of skills remain minimal. Critically, the relatively more skill-intensive process of reuse is substantially less profitable than recycling and resource capture. The study concludes by noting that the expectations from the green economy for high-quality jobs need to be assessed within the context of similar, misplaced celebrations of previous transformations of work to avoid recycling the same promises."