Enhancement of Sustainable Recycling Systems for Industrial Waste in South Korea via Hazardous Characteristics Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors did a very interesting work to analyze the hazardous characteristics for industrial waste in South Korea. Overall, the work is well organized with valuable suggestions, it still needs a little bit of improvement before publication. The followings are the comments to further improve the current version.

 

1. The language needs further improvement, for instance in lines 24-26, 70-72. The writing is not appropriate. Please thoroughly check the language through the whole text.

2. What kind of industry waste is characterized? Different companies will generate total various industry waste. Has the category or industry category be considered in this study?

3. The novelty or contribution is not highlighted in the introduction section.

4. In table 7, is the value comparable for different characteristics?

5. The current results are based on the test and it is in one dimensional perspective, because it is not uniformed to be compared considering different characteristics. The more completed assessment method is to use the life cycle based environmental analysis or LCA. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

minor modification

Author Response

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Thank you for your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript deals with is interesting and insightful but there are organizational and morphological improvements that could be considered prior the study to be accepted for publication. Therefore, the proposed review comments can be considered.

 

1. In section 3 authors are recommended to add two new subsections in which the: a) environmental concerns, including safety and processing hazards/measures/regulations, b) circular economy of waste materials, to be written as 3.6, 3.7, respectively. In this context the following published studies can offer a more pluralistic overview and comprehensive validation-verification of the conducted analysis and findings. Up to one extra and cross cited text page is adequate.

 

-Transfer of metals in the liquids of electronic cigarettes. Inhalation Toxicology, 32 (6), year 2020.

 

2. The missing 2. Literature Review section is recommended to be developed, offering a more smooth introduction to the main study.

 

3. Based on the concluding remark “South Korea is largely accounted for by the iron-, steel-, and metal-manufacturing industries. Hence, there is a risk of potential corrosivity due to the characteristic content of alkaline earth metals in such waste generators, and care should be taken in handling wastes with special regard to safety accidents.”, authors are recommended to enhance and underscore what priority issues and precautionalry actions/measures can be undertaken for similar-to-South-Korean contexts, globally? The critical point of 2-3 extra sentences is authors to convey their research findings, constraints, challenges in a generalized context. The environmental and technological dimensions can be also considered and discussed in a short coherent text of these 2-3 extra sentences.

Author Response

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Thank you for your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors of the paper "Enhancement of Sustainable Recycling System for Industrial Waste in South Korea Via Hazardous Characteristics Analysis" present a relevant topic from the perspective of waste collection, handling, and valorisation, especially in the context presented by the authors, namely the "adoption by the South Korean Government of an acceptance system to promote quality recycling of waste." Moreover, given that this issue is on the global agenda, we suggest that the authors present the multiplicative effects of the study results right from the abstract.

The concepts, citations, and bibliographical references are adequately mentioned by the authors. For instance, through resources [9-11], the authors state that "organic waste, among various types of waste, is generally recycled as aggregates for landfill, resulting in a substantial probability of contact with soil or groundwater." To further confirm the authors' thorough documentation on the studied topic, we suggest adding a "literature review" subchapter after the introduction.

The research methodology is appropriate, with data based on "approximately 4.15 million cases of the Allbaro system from 2021 statistically analysed to collect samples of synthetic polymers and inorganic industrial waste [15]," as well as "approximately 22,000 cases of synthetic polymer waste reported by 1,600 waste generators." The methods used by the authors to process the study results include the standard waste pollution method, testing methods as presented in Table 5, and, importantly, the analysis of hazardous waste characteristics.

The study results are presented both descriptively and graphically through tables and figures. Based on the research methodology used, the authors identified that "leachate toxicity was detected in a sample of slag and six dust samples," along with other hazardous waste characteristics. However, we suggest that the authors, considering the highly practical orientation of the study, highlight in a distinct paragraph their innovative scientific contributions to the specialized scientific literature, as well as the multiplicative effects as mentioned above.

In the study's conclusions, the authors highlight "the hazardous characteristics of waste for the safe recycling of slag, dust, sand waste, foundry sand waste, and synthetic polymer waste accepted as recyclable resources in South Korea, with a causal analysis," which is a very important informative resource from a practical point of view. However, we suggest that the authors also highlight the study's limitations and future research directions.

We congratulate the research team (including for the originality of the paper, with the similarity index being limited) and suggest that the authors revise the paper according to the aspects mentioned.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Thank you for your comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf