In circular economy (Ce), the value of products and materials is maintained for as long as possible. What has previously been considered waste is now a...

The management of solid waste is currently seen as one of the most important concerns that national authorities, particularly in south Europe, must address. In recent years, emphasis has begun to be paid to Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) being the largest waste stream in the European Union that is produced by renovation and repair work on buildings, roads, bridges, and other constructions made of bulky materials such as asphalt, bricks, wood, and plastic. Many EU countries responded quickly as a result of the large amounts of such waste and the presence of hazardous substances in their composition. This study illustrates the anticipated outcomes of several CDW management strategies other than final disposal, such as recycling, reuse, and incineration, for a public-school building in Greece. In order to assess how well the chosen schemes performed in terms of various environmental criteria, the SimaPro software suite and the Ecoinvent v.3 Life Cycle Inventory database were used. In order to enhance the quality of the outcomes, inventory data from earlier studies were also employed as input data for the Life Cycle Assessment tool.

Food systems and, to an extent, the pig sector are major contributors of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions globally. At the same time, significant amounts of waste are produced from the food sector. The aim of this study is to examine the implementation of circular bio-economy practices in the Greek pig sector to improve its environmental performance. More specifically, in collaboration with a pig farm in Northern Greece and a waste management company, the collection and processing of bakery by-products was organized to produce bakery meal (BM) to integrate it in the diets of fattening and growing pigs. Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, the environmental performance of 20% BM inclusion in pig diets was examined in comparison with the conventional feedstock. BM experimentally replaced corn, wheat, barley, and soya bean from conventional feedstock. The Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) was based on the yearly average values of feed and energy consumption to produce 1 kg of living weight of pig on the pig farm. Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) was conducted with SimaPro v3.5, using Recipe Midpoint Hierarchical v1.6. The LCIA calculations exhibited that BM inclusion in pig diets can lead to significant land occupation decrease, approximately 30%, which is mostly related to reduced wheat and soya beans. The reduction of cultivated croplands also led to reduced fertilizer and pesticide application, which improved marine eutrophication and freshwater ecotoxicity impact by 20% while it significantly reduced risks of human carcinogenic toxicity by 25%. Moreover, the Greek pig sector exhibited a 5% capacity for overall improvement of its environmental performance, which relies on minimizing logistics when the pig farm conducted collection and processing of by-products. A basic assumption of this study is the assessment of bakery by-product quantities in the wider region of the pig farm. The availability of by-products, based on the reported experience, was limited, and the reliability of the supply was frequently disrupted. As such, the supply chain model of the central hub for the collection and processing of bakery by-products is proposed as more efficient for regulating logistic challenges and availability.