Sustainability indicators in cooperative management of recyclable materials

Following the promulgation of the National Solid Waste Policy in 2010, legal provisions, government programs and sectoral agreements have been implemented, but without the expected efficiency in relation to recycling. It should be noted that Cooperatives of Recyclable Material Pickers (CRMP) should play a leading role in this regard, but they do not have adequate management to be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable, depending on assistance to maintain the activity. Aiming to elucidate this issue, in this paper was made an institutional diagnosis of the category of waste pickers using the Gramacho region in the city of Duque de Caxias (Rio de Janeiro) as a case study. It was carried out an evaluation of the historical context of the neighbourhood, and it was drawn up a semi-structured questionnaire in 12 of the 18 cooperatives in the region. The data were interpreted through a SWOT matrix and the Venn diagram. A matrix was proposed and elaborated with 15 sustainability indicators specific to the CRMC reality in order to evaluate and monitor the management of cooperatives. After collecting the primary data, it was possible to validate the matrix of indicators with indexes of cultural, economic, political and ecological sustainability of the cooperatives. It was found that the matrix of indicators facilitated the understanding of the data and the comparison between the indicators. This tool can help decision-making, creation of action plans and identification of demands by the cooperative waste pickers themselves, without the presence of an analyst or technician

Influence of different methods of treating natural açai fibre for mortar in rural construction

Received: January 20th, 2021 ; Accepted: April 15th, 2021 ; Published: May 4th, 2021 ; Correspondence: [email protected]çai is a typical Amazonian fruit that has enormous potential for use in medicines and foods, whose consumption has been growing year after year. One of the major environmental impacts related to Açai is the generation of agro-industrial wastes, which are disposed of in landfills. One of the major problems related to the reuse of natural fibres in cementitious materials is related to their durability due to the alkalinity of the matrix. Thus, the objective of this work was to evaluate three different methodologies for surface treatment of Açai fibre, by immersion in NaOH, KOH and Ca(OH)2 solution to mortar application in rural construction. After the treatments, the fibres were added in a proportion of 2.5 and 5.0% in relation to the cement mass, in addition to the reference mortar (without fibre) in the making of the prismatic specimens (40×40×160 mm) and cured for 28 days in room temperature. Right after the curing period, the specimens were evaluated according to the mechanical strength of flexion and compression, workability, water absorption by capillarity and mass density in the hardened state of each methodology. The results showed that the best treatment methodology is with NaOH solution, with the addition of 5% Açai fibre in relation to the cement mass, producing a suitable mortar for use in rural buildings

Application of pineapple fiber in the development of sustainable mortars

Received: January 27th, 2021 ; Accepted: May 12th, 2021 ; Published: October 5th, 2021 ; Correspondence: [email protected] to the great worldwide increase in pineapple production, countries like Brazil and India have problems regarding the correct disposal of residues from the production of this fruit. One of the possibilities is the reuse of these residues in the form of fibers in cementitious materials, as is the case with mortars. As a result, the objective of this work is to evaluate the application of pineapple fibers in mortars in the proportion of 1: 4 (cement: sand) with addition of fiber treated in NaOH in the proportion of 3 and 6%. The properties of mechanical resistance, water absorption, mass density and adhesion were evaluated, aiming to apply the mortar in coatings of rural environments. The results indicate that the fibers reduced the mortar density and increased the mechanical strength. However, there was a reduction in adherence, especially with the use of 6% fiber, in addition to an increase in water absorption. Based on the results, it is concluded that it is feasible to use 3% of pineapple fiber for the production of coating mortars in rural environments because the results obtained in the investigation are compatible with this application and with the established normative limits

Technical and economic pre-feasibility study for the construction of septic tank-filter-sinkhole with alternative material

Received: February 2nd, 2021 ; Accepted: August 3rd, 2021 ; Published: August 24th, 2021 ; Correspondence: [email protected] study of the different materials used in the construction of septic tanks aims to facilitate and spread the use of this sewage treatment system in places that are not assisted by municipal sewage systems and in the rural area, which despite having a smaller number of inhabitants compared to the urban area This study aims to carry out a technical and economic evaluation of the concrete and tires using in the construction of septic tanks-filter-sinkhole. The wastewater treatment systems were built according to the recommendations in NBR 7229/93 and 13969/97. To evaluate the efficiency of each system built, the following parameters were analyzed: chemical oxygen demand (COD), the potential of hydrogen (pH), alkalinity, acidity, and temperature. In the economic evaluation, the materials and labor required to install the systems were considered using the Brazilian cost database (SINAPI), and an economic and financial feasibility study was carried out. According to the technical and economic analysis of construction, both systems showed the same technical performance, however, the concrete design proved to be more advantageous than the tire design, considering the difficulty in acquiring the tires and the high cost if it is necessary to buy them, in addition to the greater difficulty in handling and installing the tire system compared to the concrete one

Bibliometric analysis on the use of natural fibers in construction materials

Received: February 2nd, 2021 ; Accepted: August 3rd, 2021 ; Published: August 30th, 2021 ; Correspondence: [email protected] to the increasing interest of the population in the sustainability theme, there was a consequent growth in publications related to the theme in the area of civil construction. Agroindustrial waste has become an environmental problem, and with that natural fibers have found space in the reuse of waste due to its characteristics and possibilities of improving the mechanical properties of its products. In order to achieve sustainable construction demand, along with the need to reuse waste, studies have begun to analyze the application of natural fibers in construction materials. The documents provided by the Web of Science (WOS) database through research carried out with the search for the terms ‘Natural Fibers’ and ‘Building materials’ restricted to the period 2010–2020 in the main WOS collection. The institutions involved with the publications, the countries of origin of the documents, the year of publication, the keywords used by the authors and the number of citations for each document were analyzed using bibliometrics in the VOSVIEWER (VOS) software. The result of the analysis shows an increase in documents related to the theme over the years, and that the countries with the most studies in the area are China (16), USA (14) and Brazil (11), respectively. The results presented after analysis of the keywords show that natural fiber (61 occurrences), mechanical properties (44 occurrences) and composites (31 occurrences) are the words with the highest occurrence among the analyzed documents. The present study shows the growth of research related to the theme, in addition to discriminating countries, institutions and authors, which allows monitoring the scientific expansion of the theme and guiding future studies

Design Of Agile And Green Supply Chains

As new approaches, the dynamic alignment concept and the sustainable supply chain management paradigms are significantly impacting academia and the business environment. The dynamic alignment preconizes that companies should dynamically manage different types of supply chains (e.g. fully flexible, agile, lean, and continuous replenishment) in order to respond appropriately to various types of customers' behaviours. The sustainable supply chain management approach supports that the design and management of these different types of supply chains should take into account various environmental and social issues as complements to the traditional economic criteria. In a recent study, some authors combine these two trends in a novel conceptual model aiming to help decision-makers to better manage different environmental trade-offs when designing supply chain using the dynamic alignment concept. This paper presents some experimental studies in 'agile' supply chain in order to verify some of the assumptions made by the model. Simulation experiments were conducted in a large multinational company producing non-durable consumer goods. Results provide evidence that the proposed model is consistent and has the potential to help companies to design agile and green supply chains.375382Arena,Boeing,et al.,FedEx Ground,Harris Assured Communications,The Hershey CompanyGattorna, J., (2006) Living Supply Chains: How to Mobilize the Enterprise Around Delivering What Your Customer Want, , London, FT PrenticePagell, M., Zhaohui, W., Building a more complete theory of sustainable supply chain management using case studies from 10 exemplars (2009) Journal of Supply Chain Management, 45 (2), pp. 37-56Svensson, G., Aspects of sustainable supply chain management: Conceptual framework and empirical example (2007) Supply Chain Management, 12 (4), pp. 262-266Seuring, S., Müller, M., From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management (2008) Journal of Cleaner Production, 16, pp. 1699-1710Santa-Eulalia, L.A., Araújo, J.B., Kettani, O., Francioli, L.A., Azevedo, R.C., Bremer, C.F., An essay on green supply chain design and dynamic alignment (2010) 3rd International Conference on Information Systems, Logistics and Supply Chain: Creating Value through Green Supply Chains, ILS 2010, , Casablanca, MorrocosSanta-Eulalia, L.A., Araújo, J.B., Kettani, O., Franciosi, L.A., Azevedo, R.C., Bremer, C.F., An essay on green supply chain design and dynamic alignment (2009) CIRRELT - Interuniversity Research Centre on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation, , Working Paper CIRRELT-2009-53, CanadaElkington, J., Cannibals with forks - The triple bottom line of 21st century business (1998) Environmental Quality Management, 8 (37)Klibi, W., Martel, A., Guitouni, A., The design of robust value-creating supply chain networks: A critical review (2010) European Journal of Operational Research, 203 (2), pp. 283-293Taguchi, G., (1996) Introduction to Quality Engineering: Designing Quality into Products and Processes, , New York, Quality ResourcesDavis, T., Effective supply chain management (1993) Sloan Management Review, 3 (4), pp. 35-46Araujo, J.B., Oliveira, J.F.G., Towards a balanced scoreboard for assessing manufacturing processes (2012) International Journal of Business Performance Management, , In PressMODELLIUM, Modellium Inc, , www.modellium.com, available at URL, last visit on January 201

Ecological footprint of beef consumption in the state of Rio de Janeiro - Brazil

Received: December 18th, 2020 ; Accepted: April 2nd, 2021 ; Published: April 12th, 2021 ; Correspondence: [email protected] beef production chain can cause considerable impacts on the environment depending on how it is carried out. The need to discuss the impact of the consumption of this food in a country whose production base is mainly agricultural and livestock is relevant in view of the environmental degradation and scarcity of resources. In this work, the ecological footprint of beef consumption was evaluated using the state of Rio de Janeiro as a case study. Data were collected such as population, productive capacity, annual consumption, cattle weight, grazing equivalence factor. Calculations of livestock density, consumption per capita, productivity, number of oxen, area per capita, and total area required were also carried out. The value found for Total Ecological Footprint was 1,117,995.22 gha and for Ecological Footprint per capita was 0.065 gha. It was found that the ecological footprint per capita is higher than the area destined for each inhabitant of the State which is 0.019 ha. It can be inferred that the consumption of beef as it is currently carried out harms the ecosystem in which production is inserted

Removing Pollutants from Sewage Waters with Ground Apricot Kernel Shell Material

For the first time, a comprehensive review of the literature data on the use of apricot (Prunus armeniaca) biomass components as a sorption material for the treatment of wastewater and environmental water from various pollutants is carried out in the present study. In addition to a comprehensive analysis of contemporary studies, the current work carried out its own microstructural and energy dispersive studies. It shows that apricot kernel shell is a promising raw material for obtaining sorption materials that can be used to extract various pollutants from aqueous media. The parameters of sorption interaction are presented, at which the highest rate of removal of pollutants was achieved. It is shown that the sorption capacity of apricot biomass components can be increased by modifying it with various chemical reagents, as well as other physical and physicochemical methods. We reveal that most publications consider the use of the latter as a raw material for the production of activated carbons. It is established that the surface area and total pore space of activated carbons from apricot kernel shells depend on the modes of carbonization and activation. It is shown that activated carbons are effective adsorbents for removing various pollutants (metal ions, dyes, oil and oil products) from aqueous media. It was found that the adsorption isotherms of pollutants in most cases are best described by the Langmuir and Freundlich models, and the process kinetics is most often described by the pseudo-second-order model. The possibility of improving the sorption characteristics of apricot biomass during chemical or physicochemical treatment is also shown. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland