Resources Conservation, Recycling and Waste Management

Dear Colleagues,

In the context of transitioning towards more sustainable production and consumption systems, there is an urgent need for improving our fundamental understanding of production and consumption patterns. Having such fundamental insights will help to alleviate the grander depiction of waste generation and associated environmental issues, and opportunities for better use of the products/materials/components in a system. This will ultimately help to establish efficient approaches to resources conservation, recycling, and waste management. Further, the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated socio-economic crisis have hindered the progress towards achieving the UN-SDGs. A circular economy (CE)-based approach in waste management could help in achieving the UN-SDGs in the post-COVID scenario. Therefore, this Special Issue focuses not only on science, technology, engineering, and the policy perception of current advances in ‘Resources Conservation, Recycling and Waste Management’, but also on economic viability, sustainability, and societal acceptance.

Hence, this Special Issue publishes research papers, short communications, research reviews, mini-reviews, technical notes, analyses, and case studies on topics including but  not limited to those mentioned below:

• Replacements or substitutions for primary resources;
• Management approaches, tools, methodologies and processes of change for industrial and societal systems;
• Strategies for managing resource supply and demand and the role of digital solutions;
• Increasing the serviceability of product, material, component and system;
• Waste valorization and the practical challenges with appropriate suggestions from science, technology, engineering and policy perception;
• Measures to lower embodied energy, carbon and material intensities;
• Externalities of waste processing and health care impacts;
• Information and management systems for product tracing and resource productivity improvement;
• Circular economy and its business models;
• Resilient waste management systems in the post-COVID context for sustainability;
• Circular economy approaches in waste management for achieving UN-SDGs in the post-COVID context;
• Life cycle assessment and techno-economic assessments for novel processes and systems;
• Material passports and material flow analysis;
• Cellulosic biomass to value-added products;
• Biological, chemical, and thermal waste treatment;
• Sustainability education and impact creation;
• Governance, legislation, and policy for resources conservation, recycling and waste management;
• Internalisation of environmental and social costs, as well as policy interventions;
• Analysis of manufacturer roles, as well as consumer preferences and attitudes

Dr. Nallapaneni Manoj Kumar
Dr. Subrata Hait
Dr. Anshu Priya
Dr. Varsha Bohra
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the Special Issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.