As the volume of textile waste steadily increases, mechanical, chemical and biological technologies for textile waste recovery are evolving. Also, the legal framework of the European Union has stated the commitments for promoting the recycling of textile waste in the Member States. So far, however, no decision-making algorithms have been developed for the selection of products recovered from textile waste. Within the present study, a hybrid multi-criteria decision-making algorithm for evaluating textile waste recovered products has been developed applying seven circular economic criteria – ‘Circular economy approach of the technology’, ‘Added-value potential of final product’, ‘Share of textile waste in total waste feedstock’, ‘Diversity of textile mix suitable for specific technology’, ‘Pre-treatment of waste feedstock’, ‘Recovery potential’ and ‘Maturity of a recovery technology’. The weighting of the criteria was determined by eight waste management experts. The results of the expert-based criteria evaluation show that the most important criteria are ‘Added-value potential of final product’ and ‘Circular economy approach of the technology’. The developed decision-making methodology has been adapted to nine textile waste recovered products – compost, refuse-derived fuel, ethanol, glucose, building insulation material from cement and textile waste mix, building insulation material from denim textile waste, terephthalic acid, recovered cotton and recovered polyester. The multi-criteria, decision-making ranking of the products textile shows that the highest potential for products recovered from textile waste is for glucose and terephthalic acid, while the lowest – for ethanol, compost and refuse-derived fuel.
The Analysis of Noise Level on Saulkarsti Bypass, Latvia The environmental impact assessment (EIA) is an acknowledged method in the world used for estimating the possible changes to the environment caused by proposed development activities, including the development of linear infrastructures. The EIA of planned projects for building or reconstruction of the motorways in Latvia are usually carried out in a short time frame, and therefore the data characterizing current environmental conditions sometimes are not of the best quality. These kind of data gaps cause an inaccurate prognoses on the possible changes to environmental quality after project implementation. Our research demonstrates that this was the case concerning the weak evaluation of sound levels on the Saulkrasti bypass. Within the framework of the EIA, the prognosis of sound levels was elaborated, prooving that, generally, the traffic sound will be within the officially permissible levels, although the problem points are recognized and the erection of sound barriers are proposed. After construction of bypass, however, the noise monitoring has not been carried out in order to verify whether the prognosis are true. In fact, the results of experimental measurements at four points on the Saulkrasti bypass showed the opposite - the noise level in the daytime (Ld) exceeded the acceptable value at all points of the measurements, including the places with installed sound barriers. The task of our experimental measurements on the bypass was also to find a correlation between the noise level and traffic intensity. The results showed that a correlation between these factors is weak, and the noise level is not directly dependant on traffic intensity, but on the total impact of several factors.
To support circular economy and sustainability, all European Union Member states are obliged by 2025 to collect textiles separately. Textile waste has become a part of the Sustainable Development Goals that aims to innovation in the textile sector including textile collection, reuse, sorting and recycling. Along this, the healthcare industry has a significant impact on the environment: it releases annually around 26 Gt of CO2 greenhouse gas emissions and generates on an average 3 kg of medical waste per bed per day in healthcare facilities in Europe. The main focus of the research paper is to quantify the material flow of textile waste generated/likely to be generated in the health care sector as well as to calculate its potential for material recovery. Since medical textile recovery has limitations in sorting and recycling activities due to prevalence of infections, a systematic approach in textile waste management needs to be applied both at collection phase and treatment phase. Within the present research, a database with health care products categories (42 units) are developed, and the categories are characterized by textile type, application in health care sector, fibre, contamination level after use, potential product for substitution. To measure the recovery potential of the textile waste, the indicator analysis considering technological, environmental, infection control, and economic aspects is performed.
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