Ecoloop (Sweden)

Nutrient management is one of the critical challenges for developing sustainable circular economies in cities. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus from our food end up in our wastewater and pose an environmental threat when they are released in waterways. Yet, these nutrients are essential for crop production and food security. Hince human excreta contains the bulk of nutrients going through the urban ecosystem. Source separation of excreta from the rest of urban wastewater flows can enable safe and efficient nutrient recovery. Yet, source-separating wastewater systems are not yet common in urban areas. The aim of this study is to assess the legitimacy of source-separating wastewater systems from the perspective of wastewater professionals in Sweden. The study uses interviews and a survey to explore the pragmatic, normative, cognitive and regulatory dimensions of legitimacy and how these aspects can vary between different municipalities. Finally, it looks into possible knowledge-based activities to increase legitimacy. The results from this study show variations in legitimacy levels in urban areas in Sweden. Overall opinion appears to be neutral to the concept rather than negative. Although many see multiple barriers to implementation. Normative legitimacy (moral motivation) was relatively high, while cognitive legitimacy (knowledge & experiences) was lowest. Respondents from organizations where source-separation is being implemented, or they believe that it will be implemented within 10 years, generally saw more drivers and fewer barriers. These innovators were also more interested in knowledge-based activities. Overall recommendations to increase cognitive knowledge regarding source-separating systems among multiple stakeholders seems the most promising path forward to increase legitimacy in the Swedish wastewater sector.

In this study, a mixing procedure of sulfur-rich soil and cement-based binder to enhance the soil’s unconfined compressive strength (UCS) was tested in field conditions for geotechnical applications. The focus was to evaluate uniformity of industrial size soil-binder mixture, blended by existing method. This paper outlined sampling strategy and the number of samples needed for a valid uniformity evaluation. Moreover, this study emphasized the difference between field mixing and laboratory mixture preparation by comparing UCS of stabilized soil samples in the field and UCS of corresponding samples mixed and prepared in the laboratory environment. In the field, soil and cement were blended in two to four stages with 5% and 7% cement—the percentages being based on the soil’s dry weight under field conditions. Samples were taken from the field mixtures after each stage. Since the number of samples needed to be representative of mixture characteristics for large-scale mixing is not standardized, this field experiment included two phases. The first phase was dedicated to finding a sampling strategy for a large soil pile along with measuring UCS of collected samples. In the second phase, sample collection was conducted based on the results of sampling strategy from the first phase. In the laboratory, samples with percentages of binder similar to the amount of binder in the field were also prepared. Both field and laboratory samples were prepared using the tapping method in the laboratory for UCS test. Samples were cured under similar conditions for 28 days. The results showed that the uniformity of mixture improved after each additional mixing stage. In addition, while spots with low UCS were observed in the second mixing step, these spots were eliminated in the third mixing step, and results of the UCS tests were comparatively uniform. Moreover, comparison of the samples revealed that the UCS of the laboratory mixture is higher than that of the field mixture. This showed that even though the UCS is a good standard for comparing the strength of different soils stabilized with different percentages or types of binders in the field mixing, the actual strength of the stabilized mixtures under field circumstances is lower than that in laboratory prepared mixtures.

Global economies have been characterised by a large dependency of material inflows from natural stocks, an exponential growth of material stock-in-use in the built environment, and the extensive disposal of waste material outflows to anthropogenic sinks. In this context, the concept of the circular economy has emerged, promising to circulate the stock-in-use of materials and transforming output waste material flows back into useful resources while promoting job and value creation. These promises have drawn the attention and interest of policymakers and industry, and gained popularity across society. Despite its apparent emergent legitimacy and diffusion, a few essential adjustments still need to be addressed so that circular economy initiatives can actually deliver on their promises without leading to negative unintended effects. First, a complete entanglement with the existing formal economy is fundamentally needed; this implies valuing the preservation of natural stocks and pricing material input flows adequately. Secondly, a recognition of its socio-economic embeddedness is essentially necessary. The decision-making of societal actors affects material configuration, which in turn affects societal actors; this important feedback loop needs to be explicitly taken into account in circular economy initiatives. The aim of this short communication paper is to explore these pervasive challenges in a broad context of sustainable physical resource management. An integrative framework for recognising the socio-economic embeddedness of the circular economy in practice and the role of the formal economic system in realising its ambitions is proposed.

Energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with life cycle stages of road infrastructure are currently rarely assessed during road infrastructure planning. This study examines the road infrastructure planning process, with emphasis on its use of Environmental Assessments (EA), and identifies when and how Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) can be integrated in the early planning stages for supporting decisions such as choice of road corridor. Road infrastructure planning processes are compared for four European countries (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands). The results show that only Norway has a formalised way of using LCA during choice of road corridor. Only the Netherlands has a requirement for using LCA in the later procurement stage. It is concluded that during the early stages of planning, LCA could be integrated as part of an EA, as a separate process or as part of a Cost-Benefit Analysis.

In order to assess the environmental impact of the Swedish building and property (real estate) management sector, a new top-down life cycle assessment (LCA) method was used which was based on input–output analysis using national statistical data. Six indicators were developed as suitable for environmental monitoring of the sector: energy use; emissions of greenhouse gases; emissions of nitrogen oxides; emissions of particulates; use of hazardous chemical products; and generation of waste. These indicators were then used to describe the environmental performance of the sector over a 15-year period in order to monitor change and improvement. The use of energy and emissions to air can be effectively followed in time-series. These indicators could be used to create incentives to evaluate regularly improvement work and to inform policy and practice. For greenhouse gas emissions, a trend was identified for space heating to become less important than construction and management towards the end of the period studied, most likely due to a transition from fossil fuels to renewable fuels for heat production. Key implications will be on the selection of building materials, the construction process and the extension of building longevity. Afin d'évaluer l'impact environnemental du secteur suédois de la gestion des immeubles et des biens (immobilier), il a été utilisé une nouvelle méthode descendante d'évaluation du cycle de vie (ECV) qui était basée sur une analyse des intrants et des extrants utilisant les données statistiques nationales. Six indicateurs ont été élaborés comme étant adaptés à un suivi environnemental du secteur : consommation énergétique; émissions de gaz à effet de serre; émissions d'oxydes d'azote; émissions de particules; utilisation de produits chimiques dangereux; et production de déchets. Ces indicateurs ont ensuite été utilisés pour décrire les performances environnementales du secteur sur une période de 15 ans afin de suivre les changements et les améliorations. La consommation d'énergie et les émissions dans l'air peuvent être suivies de manière efficace au moyen des séries chronologiques. Ces indicateurs pourraient être utilisés pour créer des mesures incitatives visant à évaluer régulièrement les travaux d'amélioration et à documenter les politiques et les pratiques. Concernant les émissions de gaz à effet de serre, une tendance à ce que le chauffage des locaux devienne moins important que la construction et la gestion a été identifiée vers la fin de la période étudiée, très probablement en raison d'un passage des énergies fossiles aux énergies renouvelables pour la production de chaleur. Les principales implications concerneront le choix des matériaux de construction, le processus de construction et le prolongement de la longévité des bâtiments. Mots clés: gestion des immeubles et des biens immobiliers, changement climatique, indicateurs environnementaux, suivi environnemental, analyse des intrants et des extrants, évaluation du cycle de vie (ECV), Suède

There are billions of people around the world that lack access to safe water supply and basic sanitation, a situation which puts the affected in severe health conditions as well as economical and social despair. Many of those lacking adequate water supply and sanitation systems can be found at the fringe of the cities in so called peri-urban areas, especially in the developing world. Planning in these areas is highly complex due to challenging environmental and physical conditions, high population density and unclear institutional boundaries. This article presents a framework aiming to support the planning process for sustainable water and sanitation systems in peri-urban areas. The suggested framework is based on different available planning approaches from a review of literature and websites of organisations and companies. It consists of a recommendation of important steps in the planning process as well as supporting tools. Further, it incorporates a set of sustainability criteria important for the peri-urban context and allows for the development of site specific systems. The framework has the aim to be flexible for different planning situations, and for suiting planners with different perspectives and amount of resources.

The standard of wastewater management is high in Sweden. Around 90% of the population is connected to central wastewater treatment plants with high requirements of nutrients removal; however, still the problem with algae blooms in the Baltic Sea exists. The aim of the VeVa project was to develop a simple and user-friendly Excel-based model to support environmental decisions of how to select wastewater systems for housing areas where no central sewer system exists. The VeVa model deals with two types of environmental issues: substance flow analysis and energy analysis. Six system structures were studied for the transition area Lillängsdal in Värmdö municipality sorted in three categories: 1) on-site systems for single households; 2) local collective systems; 3) connection to central systems. All studied system structures, except for a Sand filter system, fulfilled the goals of reducing phosphorus and BOD7 according to Swedish guidelines for on-site systems in sensitive areas. All studied systems, except for the Sand filter system, have the potential to fulfil the Swedish National Environmental goal to recycle 60% phosphorus to productive land. The systems with central wastewater treatment plant and local wastewater treatment are the most energy efficient alternatives that also fulfil the requirements of discharges and environmental goals regarding phosphorus recycling.