There are numerous threats to the natural environment that pose a significant risk both to the environment and to human health, including car tires. Thus, there is a need to determine the impact of the life cycle of car tires on the environment, starting with the processes of raw materials acquisition, production, and ending with end-of-life management. Therefore, the authors of this study chose to do research on passenger car tires (size: P205/55/R16). As part of the research, the life cycle assessment (LCA) of traditional car tires was performed with the use of the Eco-indicator 99, cumulative energy demand (CED), and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methods. The level of negative effects was determined for the life cycle of a tire and its particular stages: Production, use, and end of life. The negative impact on the atmosphere, soil, and water, as well as on human health, the environment, and natural resources was also investigated. The results show that the most energy-absorbing stage of a car tire life cycle is the use stage. It was found that the most harmful impact involves the depletion of natural resources and emissions into the atmosphere. Recycling car tires reduces their negative environmental impact during all their life cycle stages.

Recently, a dynamic increase in the number of polymer elements ending their life cycle has been observed. There are three main ways of dealing with polymer waste: reuse in an unchanged form, recycling (both material and energy), and disposal (mainly in the form of landfilling or incineration). The legislation of European countries promotes in particular two forms of waste management: reuse and recycling. Recycling processes are used to recover materials and energy especially from contaminated waste, which are structurally changed by other materials, friction, temperature, machine, process, etc. The recycling of polymers, especially of multi-plastic structural elements, requires the use of special technological installations and a series of preparatory operations, including crushing and separating. Due to the universality and necessity of materials processing in recycling engineering, in particular size reduction, the aim of this study is to organize and systematize knowledge about shredding in the recycling process of end-of-life polymeric materials. This could help properly design these processes in the context of sustainable development and circular economy. Firstly, an overview of the possibilities of end-of-life plastics management was made, and the meaning of shredding in the end-of-life pathways was described. Then, the development of comminution in recycling processes was presented, with special emphasis given to quasi-cutting as the dominant mode of comminution of polymeric materials. The phenomenon of quasi-cutting, as well as factors related to the material, the operation of the shredding machine, and the technological process affecting it were described. Research conducted on quasi-cutting as a phenomenon when cutting single material samples and quasi-cutting as a machine process was characterized. Then, issues regarding recycling potentials in the context of shredding were systematized. Considerations included the areas of material, technical, energy, human, and control potentials. Presented bases and models can be used to support the innovation of creative activities, i.e., environmentally friendly actions, that produce specific positive environmental results in the mechanical processing of recycled and reused materials. The literature survey indicates the need to explore the environmental aspect of the shredding process in recycling and connect the shredding process variables with environmental consequences. This will help to design and control the processes to get the lowest possible environmental burdens.

This study deals with the problems connected with the benefits and costs of an offshore wind power plant in terms of ecology. Development prospects of offshore and land-based wind energy production are described. Selected aspects involved in the design, construction, and operation of offshore wind power plant construction and operation are presented. The aim of this study was to analyze and compare the environmental impact of offshore and land-based wind power plants. Life cycle assessment analysis of 2-MW offshore and land wind power plants was made with the use of Eco-indicator 99 modeling. The results were compared in four areas of impact in order to obtain values of indexes for nonergonomic (impact on/by operator), nonfunctional (of/on the product), nonecological (on/by living objects), and nonsozological impacts (on/by manmade objects), reflecting the extent of threat to human health, the environment, and natural resources. The processes involved in extraction of fossil fuels were found to produce harmful emissions which in turn lead to respiratory system diseases being, thus, extremely dangerous for the natural environment. For all the studied areas, the impact on the environment was found to be higher for land-based wind power plants than for an offshore wind farm.

Knowledge of physical and mechanical properties of cereal grains is important for designing handling and processing equipment. However, there is still a lack of knowledge on the influence of moisture content on the physical-mechanical properties as related to machine design. The aim of this study was to investigate and describe the changes in select physical-mechanical properties of maize, rice, and soybeans at various moisture content (10%, 14%, 18%, 22%, 26%; wet basis) and their compression behavior at two loading rates of 1.25 mm/min and 125 mm/min. The measured physical and mechanical properties include size, shape, and breakage force of single kernels. It was found that an increase in moisture content increased the kernel size, altered the kernel shape, and decreased the bulk density. The effects of moisture content and loading rate on breakage force, stress, and energy varied depending on the grain type. Our results indicated that an increase in moisture content changed the mechanical behavior of grain kernels from brittle to viscoelastic. To prevent kernel damage during processing and handling, the measured force and stress during compression can be used as the limit value for designing equipment.

Car tire manufacturing can be the cause of numerous environmental hazards. Harmful emissions from the production process are an acute danger to human health as well as the environment. To mitigate these unwanted consequences, manufacturers employ the eco-balance analysis at the product designing and development stage, when formulating general development strategies, and increasingly when investigating the entire product lifecycle management process. Since the negative effects of products are considered in a broader range of implications, it has become necessary to extend the traditional scope of analytical interest onto the production, use, and end-of-life stages. This work investigates the manufacturing of passenger car tires executed with traditional and modern manufacturing technologies. The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of tires reported in this study involved three LCA methods: Eco-Indicator 99, Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) and the scientific assessment methods developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Global Warming Potential (IPCC). LCA as a tool for environmental analysis can be carried out for the entire life cycle or its individual phases. The implementation of the work made it possible to demonstrate that as a result of the identification of the main sources of negative impacts, it is possible to propose ways to minimize these impacts in the car tire manufacturing process. The results indicate that the most damaging impact is the depletion of natural resources, which play a key role in the production process of car tires.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the consumption of single-use packaging. Their material diversity is a significant barrier to recycling, causing overloading of landfills. Increasing negative environmental aspects have highlighted the need to develop solutions to achieve a relatively high efficiency of the bottle shaping process with the lowest possible energy consumption. The aim of the project is to try to describe the impact of this process on the state, transformation and development of the natural environment. The work concerns current issues of the impact of packaging on the natural environment. The main goal was to conduct a life cycle analysis (LCA) of beverage bottles made of polylactide. The functional unit comprised a total of 1000 pieces of PLA bottles with a capacity of 1 L. The boundary of the adopted system included the steps from the delivery of the preforms to the production plant to their correct formation in the process of forming beverage bottles. Further stages of the production process were excluded from the system, such as beverage bottling, labeling, and storage and distribution. Processes related to transport and storage of raw material were also excluded. The LCA analysis was performed using the program of the Dutch company Pre Consultants called SimaPro 8.4.0. The ReCiPe 2016 method was chosen for the interpretation of the quantity of emitted substances into the natural environment. The test results were presented graphically on bar charts and subjected to verification and interpretation.