Synergistic mechanism for greenhouse gases reduction, pollution control, and economic development in the plastic packaging industry: A coupled analysis of material, value, and environmental flows

Implementing the Results of Material Flow Analysis

The concept of metabolism takes root in biology and ecology as a systematic way to account for material flows in organisms and ecosystems. Early applications of the concept attempted to quantify the amount of water and food the human body processes to live and sustain itself. Similarly, ecologists have long studied the metabolism of critical substances and nutrients in ecological succession towards climax. With industrialization, the material and energy requirements of modern economic activities have grown exponentially, together with emissions to the air, water and soil. From an analogy with ecosystems, the concept of metabolism grew into an analytical methodology for economic systems. Research in the field of material flow analysis has developed approaches to modeling economic systems by assessing the stocks and flows of substances and materials for systems defined in space and time. Material flow analysis encompasses different methods: industrial and urban metabolism, input–output analysis, economy-wide material flow accounting, socioeconomic metabolism, and more recently material flow cost accounting. Each method has specific scales, reference substances such as metals, and indicators such as concentration. A material flow analysis study usually consists of a total of four consecutive steps: (a) system definition, (b) data acquisition, (c) calculation, and (d) interpretation. The law of conservation of mass underlies every application, which implies that all material flows, as well as stocks, must be accounted for. In the early 21st century, material depletion, accumulation, and recycling are well-established cases of material flow analysis. Diagnostics and forecasts, as well as historical or backcast analyses, are ideally performed in a material flow analysis, to identify shifts in material consumption for product life cycles or physical accounting and to evaluate the material and energy performance of specific systems. In practice, material flow analysis supports policy and decision making in urban planning, energy planning, economic and environmental performance, development of industrial symbiosis and eco industrial parks, closing material loops and circular economy, pollution remediation/control and material and energy supply security. Although material flow analysis assesses the amount and fate of materials and energy rather than their environmental or human health impacts, a tacit assumption states that reduced material throughputs limit such impacts.

Material flow analysis( MFA) is an objective,quantifiable and concise tool for system assessment. As the core content of industrial ecology,it includes bulk-MFA and substance flow analysis( SFA),has been widely applied in different environmental-economic systems at global-level,nation-level,region-level and city-level,and developed into a significant tool in quantifying circular economy,eco-efficiency,low-carbon society and other concepts of sustainable development. In recent years,as MFA at the nation-level come to be a standard research method on the basis of studies carried by World Resources Institute and European Commission,research importance of MFA at smaller scale highlights, and studies of material flow,metabolism and resource flow at regional level become the focus and hotspots of MFA. Based on analysis of existing studies,current status of regional MFA is briefly reviewed from perspectives of research framework, indicator system,data integration and management application,and "black box hypothesis"and "systematic metaphor" turned out to be the theoretical root of current difficulty of regional MFA. Based on levels of organization integrated with complexity science and grand evolutionary theory,metaphor of"ecosystem"in industrial ecology as well as regional MFA is generally analyzed,and the necessity of introduction of"landscape"into regional MFA is raised to improve the spatial and cognitive dimension of regional MFA. From "system"to "landscape",landscape ecology principles are introduced in the regional MFA,contributions of landscape ecology in regional MFA are generalized in 6 tenets: 1) emphasizing the structural difference between natural ecosystem and socio-economic system,and providing a hierarchical and integrativeecological basis; 2) the landscape( or region) as a basic spatial unit for studying human-nature interactions,providing a holistic approaches to socio-ecological systems; 3) combine "flow"in MFA with "source"and "sink"in landscape, combine "stock or reservoir"with "patch",and "flow or flux"with "corridor",and transfer "material flow in system" into "material flow in space"; 4) developing material flow observation,investigation and experiment in landscape,combine subjective and objective data in a mechanistic method; 5) combine material flow of great amount with patch dynamic and assess the environmental impact based on spatial variation; 6) combine MFA with other tools of sustainability assessment like ecological footprint and sustainable livelihood,and providing implications for regional management. Based on "PatchCorridor-Matrix Model","patch dynamics","Hierarchy theory",as well as the "Hierarchical Patch Dynamic Paradigm( HPDP) ",spatial structure of regional material flow process is established and interpreted. Meanwhile,cognitive schemata of regional material flow process is analyzed and compared from psychological and logical perspectives. For further interpretation of the landscape orientation of regional MFA,multi-scale integrated assessment of material flow analysis, spatial-temporal modeling of material flow process and spatial management of material flow process are discussed deeply. At the end of this paper,regional MFA is further considered from a perspective of interdisciplinary,it concludes that rather than reflects the competition between ecosystem ecology and landscape ecology,paradigm shift from system to landscape of regional MFA solidifies the theoretical basis of MFA,and expands the research field of landscape ecology.

Material use within construction dominates resource consumption worldwide. Correspondingly, construction is associated with high rates of waste. Transitioning to a circular economy relies heavily on domestic markets, efficient supply chains, and a clear understanding of current and predicted material flows. Material flow analyses have been used extensively globally to generate insights into materials in use, changes over time and future waste generation. However, existing databases do not hold the necessary information to conduct such an analysis for the Australian residential construction industry. This paper uses a novel qualitative bottom-up approach to complement data gaps in existing databases to establish a material stock and flow analysis of the Australian residential construction industry. This approach has highlighted the dominance and continued growth of concrete by the sector, and has shown the importance of addressing data gaps in the industry as well as employing a location-based approach to move towards the circular economy.

This study aims to identify a strategic group model in the plastic packaging industry in Indonesia. The plastic packaging industry plays an important role in the manufacturing industry. With the increasing demand for a manufactured product, the plastic packaging industry is still very tempting for business people. Strategic Group is a number of business units or a number of companies that use the same strategy with the same resources. This research focuses on PT. Sinergi Inti Plastindo, Tbk a plastic packaging company in Indonesia. The company produces various types of plastic packaging for food products. This case study research method is also used to describe a strategy used by companies as a strategy to deal with competition in industrial groups. The results of the research show that the market leader holds the highest sales in 2019 using the same strategy as its competitors. The results also show that companies operating in the same industry need to develop their product types. Don't just focus on one type of product. The number of types of products produced will increase the sales of the company. In addition, the market share obtained by the company will be higher.

Material flow analysis is an important tool for estimating material flows and embedded emissions of transport infrastructure. Missing attributes tend to be a major barrier to accurate estimates. In this study a machine learning model is developed to estimate the missing data in a statistics dataset of roads, to enable a bottom-up material stock and flow analysis. The proposed approach was applied to the Swedish road network to predict missing data for road width in the statistical dataset. The predicted hybrid dataset was then used to estimate material stocks, flows, and embodied emissions from Year 2020 to Year 2045 using decarbonization scenarios with a supply chain perspective. The study demonstrates that machine learning models can be used to enable national-level material stock and flow analyses of roads. Multiple machine learning algorithms were tested, and the best performing model achieved an R2 value of 0.784. In the scenario-based analysis, the embodied emissions of Swedish roads could be reduced by up to 51% using available materials.

The optimization of material flow in production

Where do islands put their waste? – A material flow and carbon footprint analysis of municipal waste management in the Maltese Islands

SummaryThis study investigated the petroleum consumption and petroleum‐related CO2 emissions (PCOEs) in Northeast China at city level using material flow analysis (MFA) and spatial data analysis (SDA). The petroleum flows for the year 2014 were plotted, and then the spatial patterns, weighted mean centers (WMCs), and spatial autocorrelations of petroleum consumption and PCOEs were calculated, respectively. It was found that Northeast China is a petroleum exploitation‐processing‐export region in China; the total input of petroleum flows comprised two parts—exploitation (about 60%) and import (about 40%). About one third of the total product oil supply flowed into other provinces. In the consumption process, the product oil was dominated by two sectors: the industry sector (45.5%) and the transportation sector (31%). The rate of PCOEs was 36.69 million tonnes in the waste discharge process. Meanwhile, the WMCs of the petroleum consumption and the PCOEs were located in the south of Northeast China. The location of the petroleum pipelines was the factor shown to determine the spatial patterns of petroleum consumption and PCOEs and the hotspots were distributed along the petroleum pipeline, especially in the Circum‐Bohai Sea regions. Economic development in these regions shows a positive dependence on petroleum consumption and generates larger PCOEs. The findings obtained in this study could provide important decision‐making support to low‐carbon development in Northeast China.

In this paper, the application of Umberto NXT LCA software to devise a Material and Energy Flow Analyses (MEFA) for the technology of producing electricity from gas extracted in the process of shaftless underground coal gasification is presented. The Material Flow Analyses of underground coal gasification includes a range of technology, through obtaining process gas and its purification, to electricity production, and, additionally, the capture of carbon dioxide. To evaluate electricity production based on Underground Coal Gasification, Material and Energy Flow Analyses (MEFA) was used. Modeling material and energy flow helps a high level of efficiency or technology of a given process to be reached, through the effective use of resources and energy, or waste management. The applied software for modeling material flow enables, not only, the simulation of industrial processes, but also the simulation of any process with a material or energy flow, e.g. in agriculture. MEFA enabled the visualization of material and energy flow between individual unit processes of the technology of electricity production from UCG gas. An analysis of material and energy flow networks presented in the form of Sankey diagrams enabled the identification of unit processes with the biggest consumption of raw materials and energy, and the greatest amount of emissions to the environment. Thanks to applying material and energy flow networks with Umberto software, it is possible to visualize the flow of materials and energy in an analyzed system (process/technology). The visualization can be presented in the form of an inventory list of input and output data, or in the form of a Sankey diagram. In the article, a Sankey diagram has been utilized. MEFA is first stage of the plan to conduct analyses using Umberto software. The analyses performed so far will be used in the following stages of the research to assess the environmental impact using the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) technique, to analyze costs using the LCC (Life Cycle Cost) technique, and to analyze eco-efficiency. It is important to highlight the fact that this is the first attempt of material and energy flow analysis of electricity production from UCG gas. This is the first approach which contains a whole chain of electricity production from Underground Coal Gasification, including stages of gas cleaning, electricity production and the additional capture of carbon dioxide.

Purpose In this paper, the application of Umberto NXT LCA software to devise a Material and Energy Flow Analyses (MEFA) for the technology of producing electricity from gas extracted in the process of shaftless underground coal gasification is presented. The Material Flow Analyses of underground coal gasification includes a range of technology, through obtaining process gas and its purification, to electricity production, and, additionally, the capture of carbon dioxide. Methods To evaluate electricity production based on Underground Coal Gasification, Material and Energy Flow Analyses (MEFA) was used. Modeling material and energy flow helps a high level of efficiency or technology of a given process to be reached, through the effective use of resources and energy, or waste management. The applied software for modeling material flow enables, not only, the simulation of industrial processes, but also the simulation of any process with a material or energy flow, e.g. in agriculture. Results MEFA enabled the visualization of material and energy flow between individual unit processes of the technology of electricity production from UCG gas. An analysis of material and energy flow networks presented in the form of Sankey diagrams enabled the identification of unit processes with the biggest consumption of raw materials and energy, and the greatest amount of emissions to the environment. Practical implications Thanks to applying material and energy flow networks with Umberto software, it is possible to visualize the flow of materials and energy in an analyzed system (process/technology). The visualization can be presented in the form of an inventory list of input and output data, or in the form of a Sankey diagram. In the article, a Sankey diagram has been utilized. MEFA is first stage of the plan to conduct analyses using Umberto software. The analyses performed so far will be used in the following stages of the research to assess the environmental impact using the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) technique, to analyze costs using the LCC (Life Cycle Cost) technique, and to analyze eco-efficiency. It is important to highlight the fact that this is the first attempt of material and energy flow analysis of electricity production from UCG gas. Originality/value This is the first approach which contains a whole chain of electricity production from Underground Coal Gasification, including stages of gas cleaning, electricity production and the additional capture of carbon dioxide.

Purpose In this paper, the application of Umberto NXT LCA software to devise a Material and Energy Flow Analyses (MEFA) for the technology of producing electricity from gas extracted in the process of shaftless underground coal gasification is presented. The Material Flow Analyses of underground coal gasification includes a range of technology, through obtaining process gas and its purification, to electricity production, and, additionally, the capture of carbon dioxide. Methods To evaluate electricity production based on Underground Coal Gasification, Material and Energy Flow Analyses (MEFA) was used. Modeling material and energy flow helps a high level of efficiency or technology of a given process to be reached, through the effective use of resources and energy, or waste management. The applied software for modeling material flow enables, not only, the simulation of industrial processes, but also the simulation of any process with a material or energy flow, e.g. in agriculture. Results MEFA enabled the visualization of material and energy flow between individual unit processes of the technology of electricity production from UCG gas. An analysis of material and energy flow networks presented in the form of Sankey diagrams enabled the identification of unit processes with the biggest consumption of raw materials and energy, and the greatest amount of emissions to the environment. Practical implications Thanks to applying material and energy flow networks with Umberto software, it is possible to visualize the flow of materials and energy in an analyzed system (process/technology). The visualization can be presented in the form of an inventory list of input and output data, or in the form of a Sankey diagram. In the article, a Sankey diagram has been utilized. MEFA is first stage of the plan to conduct analyses using Umberto software. The analyses performed so far will be used in the following stages of the research to assess the environmental impact using the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) technique, to analyze costs using the LCC (Life Cycle Cost) technique, and to analyze eco-efficiency. It is important to highlight the fact that this is the first attempt of material and energy flow analysis of electricity production from UCG gas. Originality/value This is the first approach which contains a whole chain of electricity production from Underground Coal Gasification, including stages of gas cleaning, electricity production and the additional capture of carbon dioxide.

Summary The notion of a (socio-) metabolic transition has been used todescribe fundamental changes in socioeconomic energy andmaterial use during industrialization. During the last century,Japandevelopedfromalargelyagrarianeconomytooneoftheworld’s leading industrial nations. It is one of the few industrialcountries that has experienced prolonged dematerializationand recently has adopted a rigorous resource policy. This arti-cle investigates changes in Japan’s metabolism during industri-alization on the basis of a material flow account for the periodfrom 1878 to 2005. It presents annual data for material ex-traction, trade, and domestic consumption by major materialgroup and explores the relations among population growth,economic development, and material (and energy) use. Dur-ing the observed period, the size of Japan’s metabolism grewby a factor of 40, and the share of mineral and fossil materialsin domestic material consumption (DMC) grew to more than90%. Much of the growth in the Japanese metabolism wasbased on imported materials and occurred in only 20 yearsafter World War II (WWII), when Japan rapidly built up largestocks of built infrastructure, developed heavy industry, andadopted patterns of mass production and consumption. Thesurge in material use came to an abrupt halt with the firstoil crisis, however. Material use stabilized, and the economyeventually began to dematerialize. Although gross domesticproduct (GDP) grew much faster than material use, improve-mentsinmaterialintensityarearelativelyrecentphenomenon.Japanemergesasarolemodelforthemetabolictransitionbutis also exceptional in many ways.www.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jie

Materials flow analysis (MFA) is internationally recognized as a key tool to assess the biophysical metabolism of societies and to provide aggregated indicators for environmental pressures of human activities. Economy‐wide MFAs have been compiled for a number of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, but so far very few studies exist for countries in the South. In this article, the first materials‐flow‐based indicators for Chile are presented. The article analyzes the restructuring of the Chilean economy toward an active integration in the world markets from the perspective of natural resource use in a time series from 1973 to 2000. Special emphasis is placed on the assessment of materials flows related to Chile's international trade relations. Results show that material inputs to the Chilean economy increased by a factor of 6, mainly as a result of the promotion of resource‐intensive exports from the mining, fruit growing, forestry, and fishery sectors. At more than 40 tons, Chile's resource use per capita at present is one of the highest in the world. The article addresses the main shortcomings of the MFA approach, such as weightbased aggregation and the missing links between environmental pressures and impacts, and gives suggestions for methodological improvements and possible extensions of the MFA framework, with the intent of developing MFA into a more powerful tool for policy use.

Based on material flow analysis: Value chain analysis of China iron resources