Integrating Circular Bioeconomy and Urban Dynamics to Define an Innovative Management of Bio-Waste: The Study Case of Turin
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Problems of Circular Economy and Bioeconomy raised in the paper are topical and consistent with current European environmental policy. Only some issue should be corrected or explained:
- Line 33-34: Can concepts really be called tools?
- Research Methodology: The information about what year the statistic data comes from should be added. More detailed information about interviews should be supplemented as well (date of conducting, method of collecting).
- Section 3.1 should be rather a part of Introduction. It is still a review of the literature and is about the bio-waste that was considered in the first part of article.
- Table 3 should be titled. Additionally, it should be explained what is analysed in rows and columns. Tables are generally difficult to read due to the fact that they are inserted as images
- In the Figure 5 names of stakeholders should be translated into English.
I find the article important both from the theoretical and practical point of view. I recommend it for publication after minor changes.
Author Response
Point 1: We understand how ambiguous it can be to consider concepts such as CE and BE as instruments. For this reason we have decided to accept the suggestion and rephrase the sentence.
Point 2: The interviews information related to date of conducting have been added, as for the statistic data. The method of collecting (snowball sampling) was present yet.
Point 3: relevant parts of section 3.1 were merged in the Introduction.
Point 4: Table 3 has been titled, explained and enlarged as the other images.
Point 5: Figure 5 has been translated in english.
Reviewer 2 Report
In this study, a scenario for treatment of the municipal solid waste in the city of Turin is studied. Actually, system thinking and system dynamics are qualitatively analysed based on circular bioeconomy principle. The process could be applied to larger scale through micro-digestion reactor. It is focused on a bio-based approach to reduce natural resources use and food waste, enabling shift from waste to resource. It is an interesting approach; thus, I recommend the paper for publication with minor comments.
Minor comments:
How co-composting could be a realistic solution with the hundred thousand tonnes of waste generated. Where could the composting take place?
Line 34: tools enable
Line 200: to analyse its organic waste management
Line 212: the data not datas
Figure 5: please translate in English
Conclusions: too long, need to be shortened.
Author Response
We are grateful for your comments and suggestions.
Point 1: we agree that co-composting does not represent the solution for a better MSWMS but it could help to solve partly the management problem by eliminating the pathogens and pollutants related risks for the environment; certainly it should be specified that the co-composting could not take place in the urban context but surely in the wider peri-urban context at the waste water treatment plants.
Point 2-3-4: English corrections have been provided
Point 5: Figure 5 has been translated
Point 6: Conclusions section has been shortened
Reviewer 3 Report
This is an interesting and for the most part well-written paper. However, the introduction is overly long and unwieldy. It would improve the paper to provide a succinct introduction, followed by a section on relevant literature.
While the CBE concept itself is not that new (plenty in the literature on it), Sustainability has significant reach to policy developers and practitioners. It would be good to make this material more accessible to them, and perhaps this potential could be enhanced by separating out the literature and putting it in its own section (rather than as part of what is now the introduction). The case itself is useful for knowledge-sharing and welcome on that basis.
Author Response
We are grateful for your comments. We have tried to reduce and put in order the Introduction and relevant parts of section 3.1 were merged into this section. We consider the concepts of CE, BE and CBE as already established and for this reason we briefly recalled them in the intro. Regarding the relevant literature section, in section 3.1 we have tried to report mainly the research related to the exploitation of organic resources, in support of the subsequent CLD.
