Poland’s Proposal for a Safe Solution of Waste Treatment during the COVID-19 Pandemic and Circular Economy Connection

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

see the attached PDF file with indications 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your suggestions. I changed the article according to your directions:

1. I changed the topic: "Poland Proposal for a Safest Solution of Waste Treatment During COVID-19 pandemic and circular economy connection"

2. I change the type: "Article" - I hope now is ok.

3. I put the paper in the format requested by the journal: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci/instructions

4. In the 40 line - I added scientific references.

5. In the introduction I added:

• a paragraph regarding the Poland legislation and graphic show municipal solid waste management.
• a paragraph regarding SARS-CoV2-2 and waste in EU and no-EU countries

6. I used the proposed literature.

7. I changed most of my self-citation and some polish citations to different literature.

8. I added references under the description of Figure 1.

9. I added references in 3.6.

10. I added future developments in Conclusions.

11. This article is after linguistic correction (as you can see all adjustment in word).

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Waste management faces with the challenge of COVID19 problems. Keeping in mind the concepts of circular economy the investigation of the applicability and efficiency of  hygienization methods has high importance in waste handling and utilization technologies. Therefore, the topic of manuscript applsci-1195211 is interesting for the readers.

The manuscript is generally well structured. In section 1 and 2 the research motivations and importance of the research are well defined and highlighted.

Authors have highlighted the relevance of the application of thermal methods for waste treatment.

Manuscript contains interesting and valuable information and recommendations for the practice.

 

 

 

Comments, suggestions:

It should be informative to give the amount or percentage of PPEs in municipal waste streams.

Authors concluded in section 4, that the use of disinfection with nanosilver or titanium oxide ions is an expensive solution. Please give the approximately costs to underline this establishment.

I suggest the authors to discuss in more details the applicability of automated sorting methods for municipal waste, for instance. These solutions can reduce the microbial risks.

I suggest to give the standard deviation for data presented in Table 2 and 3.

Can the conventionally used anaerobic digestion technologies decrease the microbial risks of biowaste? Please discuss this issue, as well.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your suggestions and comments. I corrected the article according to your directions:

1. In the introduction, I added a piece of information about PPE (The World Health Organization estimates that currently around 89 million face masks and 76 million gloves are used worldwide.)
2. I added the approx. price of materials: The use of disinfection with nanosilver (about 12-15 EUR/5l) or titanium oxide ions (15-40 EUR/ 100g). 

3. Heavy metal tests have been commissioned and I only have the results shown. The incinerator reports its operation to the office. I just cited an example year (https://www.suez-zielonaenergia.pl/podsumowanie-eksploatacji-2018-rok/)

4. I added in 3.2 information about anaerobic digestion. (last paragraph)
5. I added information about automatization under the SWOT table.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

 all reviewers indications must be addressed/answered 

increase the references to scientific papers, again 50% of the references are to Poland sites 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your new suggestion and comments:

1. All reviewers indications must be addressed/answered

I am sorry, I did not answer, I am correcting myself and I add missing indications from Round 1.

• I added references in point 2, paragraph 1.
• I added references in point 3, paragraph 1.

2. Increase the references to scientific papers, again 50% of the references are to Poland sites

I changed and added.

English article (26): 1,2,3,6,7,9,10,11,12,17,18,19,21,22,23,25,27,28,29,31,32,33,35,39,40,41

English website - eg. studies, reports (3):

5,13,14

Polish website - eg. studies, reports, norms, acts (12)

4,8,15,16,20,24,26,30,34,36,37,38

I hope now is enough English scientific papers.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx