Taking stock for repair and refurbishing: A review of harvesting of spare parts from electrical and electronic products

A circular economy (CE) calls for the value of materials and products to be maintained and recovered through narrowing, closing, and slowing loops. However, there remain challenges in capturing value through reuse of components in refurbished and repaired products. In this paper, we provide an overview of the research and practice of harvesting spare parts from used and waste electrical and electronic equipment (white goods and consumer electronic products). Through a literature review and case studies of Norway, Sweden, and California, we provide an overview of drivers and barriers for spare part harvesting. Applying a stakeholder value mapping framework, we identify the key stakeholders involved in spare part harvesting and map the values captured, missed, and destroyed to identify opportunities for increased value retention. Finally, we suggest further refinements for policy to upscale spare part harvesting in light of CE goals and objectives.     

Internal recycling of respired CO2 may be important for plant functioning under changing climate regimes

Recent studies have provided evidence of a large flux of root-respired CO₂ in the transpiration stream of trees. In our study, we investigated the potential impact of this internal CO₂ transport on aboveground carbon assimilation and CO₂ efflux. To trace the transport of root-respired CO₂, we infused a ¹³C label at the stem base of field-grown Populus deltoides Bartr. ex. Marsh trees. The ¹³C label was transported to the top of the stem and throughout the crown via the transpiration stream. Up to 17% of the ¹³C label was assimilated by chlorophyll-containing tissues. Our results provide evidence of a mechanism for recycling respired CO₂ within trees. Such a mechanism may have important implications for how plants cope with predicted increases in intensity and frequency of droughts. Here, we speculate on the potential significance of this recycling mechanism within the context of plant responses to climate change and plants currently inhabiting arid environments.     

Developing Miscanthus seed plug establishment protocols with mulch film for commercial upscaling

High-yielding crops with C₄ photosynthesis arising in tropical climates are being bred for, and increasingly grown in, temperate climates. Miscanthus, a C₄ from Eastern Asia is a leading perennial biomass crop, but commercial deployment is limited by low temperatures in Northern Europe, low clonal multiplication rates and slow establishment rates requiring up to 4 years to reach mature yields. While new seeded hybrids have multiplication rates >2000, direct field sown seed has proven impractical. Protocols for safe establishment of seeded hybrids require that seedlings are raised in the glasshouse in compost filled modules (also known as ‘plugs’) which are transplanted into the field in springtime. To protect seedlings from damage from late frosts, drought and grazing and to increase temperature stimulating growth rates, plug plants were covered with oxo-degradable plastic mulch film designed for maize. At two sites in the UK, this mulch film significantly reduced plant losses at transplanting and overwintering, increased stem heights and shoot counts, and reduced the time to mature yield from 4 to 3 years (p < 0.01). However, the breakdown products of oxo-degradable mulch films contribute to microplastics in the soil. Therefore, further mulch film experiments were conducted with bio-derived plastics which are bio-degradable in soil at extruded thicknesses of 10, 18 and 30 microns. The 10 micron film combined sufficient strength for machine laying and worked as well as oxo-degradable film on de-risking establishment. Halving the mulch film widths covering 1 row rather than 2 reduced the amount of plastic by 25%. Commercial plug-to-field protocols are built on results from the plot experiments and field-scale plantings over multiple years and locations and are ready for future upscaling of biomass production from seed-based Miscanthus hybrids.     

Fostering sustainable land restoration through circular economy‐governed transitions

Soil and land are critical common pool resources offering a multitude of ecosystem services (ES) and presently affected by degradation and unplanned exploitation. The present article therefore attempts to elucidate the importance of circular economy in boosting land restoration and realization of several sustainable development goals through efficient waste recycling and clean energy production from degraded lands combined with policy restructuring for aligning circularity with restoration. Integrative policy frameworks targeting a “sustainable restoration economy” can help improve the cost feasibility of restoration projects through circularization of resource value chains besides enhancing social welfare and ecological vitality.     

Textile Decorating as a Handicraft

The rhetoric of the creative economy agenda has influenced the revised Ontario curriculum in the arts for grades 9–12. Yet, increasing rhetorical and substantive support for a creative economy agenda in Ontario at large is not sufficiently reflected in the revised Ontario arts curriculum. The expanded agenda is not matched by expanded substantive attention to the arts in the curriculum. Two new elective arts courses have been introduced in the revised curriculum; however, students are still only required to pass one art course to graduate from high school. This article argues that one compulsory art course is not sufficient to respond to the demands of the creative economy and thus recommends that further consideration of the curriculum be undertaken.     

Japan and the concept of sustainability

This article describes a sustainable human social adaptation. It provides an example of how a human population responds to environmental stresses and modulates its population given technological abilities for food production and population control. The example used is Japan over the past 500 years. The concept of “sustainability” has become a popular concept used in a variety of conflicting and contradictory contexts and with resulting confusion. This eassay is offered as a point of discussion to produce more precise definitions of the concept of sustainability as it applies to human society.     

Matter-economical roles of evergreen leaves inAucuba japonica,an understory shrub in the warm-temperate region of Japan

Seasonal dynamics in nitrogen and phosphorus content were examined for each component organ ofAucuba japonica, an evergreen understory shrub in the warmtemperate region of Japan. Evergreen foliage was the largest pool for each nutrient; nitrogen and phosphorus were accumulated and stored in autumn and then redistributed in the spring. For individual leaves, such seasonal accumulations and redistributions were repeated through two or three years and then at leaf fall, an additional amount was withdrawn. Rapid growth of new shoots and flowers during spring was supported by the massive redistribution of the nutrients from the old foliage. The redistribution accounted for 85% and 65% of the total nitrogen and phosphorus input to the new shoots, respectively. Such a high ratio of redistribution resulted in a conservative nutrient economy, and must be positively related to the photosynthetic production in the ligh-limited environment.     

Notes on paradigm economy

It is shown that assuming instances of syncretism to be systematic in the unmarked case may significantly reduce the number of possible inflection classes that can be generated on the basis of a given inventory of markers, without recourse to specific constraints like Carstairs’ (Allomorphy in Inflection, Croom Helm 1987) Paradigm Economy Principle or Carstairs-McCarthy’s (Language 70:737–787, 1994) No Blur Principle. If there is always one radically underspecified (i.e., elsewhere) marker per morphological domain, and if there is always one unique marker that is chosen in cases of marker competition, it turns out that there can be at most 2 ⁿ  − 1 inflection classes for n markers, independently of the number of instantiations of the grammatical category that the markers have to distribute over. The argument relies on the notion of marker deactivation combinations.