Waste materials
Research Topic
Language: English
This is a research topic created to provide authors with a place to attach new problem publications.
Research problems linked to this topic
- How can we optimise the food system to support future food production and consumption sustainably whilst reducing environmental impacts?
- How can innovation in chemical production, use, and disposal across the supply chain minimise chemical-related risks, benefiting the circular economy and reducing pollution?
- How can we assess and mitigate systemic risks involving environmental factors? What are the best approaches for monitoring that tracks system dynamics based on key ‘watchpoints’ to trigger mitigation actions?
- How do we effectively monitor and assess the impact of emerging threats on water quality and ecology (for example plastics, antimicrobial resistance, neonicotinoid pesticides, nanoparticles, pharmaceuticals, invasive species, and chemicals) to inform risk-based decision making?
- What is the potential for battery recycling and how can this potential be reached?
- What are the trade-offs between primary resource extraction versus reclamation of resources from waste streams in the context of resource security? How circular can the UK economy become?
- How can other environmental impacts of creative industries activities be measured, such as their influence on extraction and use of raw materials (including plastics), waste, recycling and re-use practices?
- How will the changing climate affect the persistence and movement of chemical contaminants in the environment?
- Which practises can most effectively reduce emissions of GHG (including CH4 and N2O) from agriculture, waste, and wastewater, land-use, and F-gases in the UK and internationally?
- What will be the environmental impact of the copper switch-off and recovery of copper wiring? This includes the emissions used to recover the copper wiring, and the emissions savings from reduced need to mine and refine copper?
- First responder capabilities and approaches to decontamination and recovery.
- What is the burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the environment and within food systems, and to what extent is this facilitating the development and transmission of AMR between animal and human populations?
- Develop innovative and improved abatement technologies for air pollutant emissions and noise generation across all sectors and sources
- How can the UK optimise sustainable growth of biomass for use in power generation (bioenergy) and, with appropriate storage, for removal of atmospheric CO2? How can the negative environmental consequences from biomass production and use (on soil quality, water quality, air quality, and biodiversity) be minimised? What’s the full life cycle analysis for different feedstock? What’s the scalability of different feedstocks within sustainable limits?
- How can we improve the management of our ecosystems, including biodiversity loss, chemical pollution, environmental degradation, and the introduction of alien species, to reduce the risk of infectious zoonotic, animal, and plant diseases?
- What are the biggest chemical, pesticide, and hazardous waste-related risks to the environment and human health, both in the UK and globally? What are the costs of inaction? How are these risks most effectively monitored and managed, and what is the role of government?
- Understand differential toxicity of particulate components, the importance of non-exhaust sources, relevance of pollutant mixtures, and the biological mechanisms for effects from different sound sources