Research Archives - Page 3 of 3

Could a national glass bottle return and refill scheme work in the UK? An industry perspective

Could a national glass bottle return and refill scheme work in the UK? An industry perspective

In 2019, the UK recovered 71% of single-use glass by mass, but only around 36% was used to make new container glass. This low circular rate is partly because the UK has a mixed collection system which requires the glass to be sorted into different colours before remelting and results in less cullet (waste glass for remelting) returned than in separated colour collection. Much of the glass is therefore used in aggregates for roads, resulting in nearly 50% of potential cullet not being used for new container glass bottles. The international nature of glass production and trade also means a large percentage of the bottles manufactured in the UK, particularly clear bottles, are exported for recycling, resulting in a loss of materials over which the industry has control. These and other challenges to circular-loop recycling of container glass raise the question of why there are not large-scale national refill [...]

Joanna Johnson2024-04-29T14:46:58+00:00May 12th, 2023|

Key intervention points for implementing a circular economy in UK’s Foundation Industries

Key intervention points for implementing a circular economy in UK’s Foundation Industries

Insights from the Master’s thesis of Saikiran Medam Circular economy is an alternative to the linear take-make-waste economy and strives to minimise resource usage, extend the lifetimes of products, and close energy and material loops, thereby promoting sustainable development. It helps to reduce carbon footprints in the foundation industries by following circular business processes such as lean manufacturing, industrial symbiosis, remanufacturing, and recycling. In order to gain insight into this subject, I performed analysis on a range of factors that act as drivers and barriers for the implementation of a circular economy in foundation industries and identified a priority list of key intervention points. This was achieved by using a context analysis to identify an initial 91 potential factors which were consolidated via an online survey to 12 factors. These were then further examined and analysed, with input from experts from industry, government and academia. My study found that [...]

Joanna Johnson2023-05-16T08:45:36+00:00May 2nd, 2023|

Lessons learned from differing priorities for stakeholders

Lessons learned from differing priorities for stakeholders

TransFIRe User Journey Method Pilot Study: Lessons learned from differing priorities for stakeholders J McKendree & S Cinderby Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York Summary TransFIRe Workstream 3 (WS3) explores collaborations between Foundation Industries (FIs) and nearby communities. User Journey methods are useful for exploring expectations, challenges and potential solutions in such partnerships. A workshop was planned to pilot a User Journey with an example FI, local businesses and community organisations concerned with skills promotion and net zero goals. Community organisations were more likely to show interest than the FI companies or local small businesses. Finding the appropriate contact for community engagement in industry was difficult. Many FIs have limited time for external engagement and prioritise technical actions to increase short term productivity and profitability. TransFIRe could potentially facilitate industry/community connections and collaborations. Conducting individual User Journey interviews remotely may offer a more effective means of exploring opportunities than [...]

Joanna Johnson2023-05-02T12:27:53+00:00February 28th, 2023|

TransFIRe Report: State of EDI in the UK Foundation Industries 2022

TransFIRe Report: State of EDI in the UK Foundation Industries 2022

The TransFIRe EDI team have brought together a series of findings in a "State of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the UK Foundation Industries 2022" report. It is becoming increasingly apparent and widely accepted that equity, diversity and inclusion are of paramount importance in the success of any organisation or project. Yet research by UKRI has found the foundation industries to face a specific set of EDI challenges1. As a new topic to the foundation industries, there are many gaps in research, and EDI practices do not appear to be well established. The TransFIRe EDI survey set out to measure a baseline of the EDI capabilities of organisations in the foundation industries in 2022. All TransFIRe academic and industry partners were invited to participate in this survey, which consisted of 33 questions aligned to 7 major themes of common EDI interventions. The term “interventions” is used to mean any [...]

Joanna Johnson2023-02-27T15:03:50+00:00February 2nd, 2023|

TransFIRe partner collaboration on the tiles

TransFIRe partner collaboration on the tiles

In the summer of last year, a range of teams from across TransFIRe began working with Zentia, a ceiling tile manufacturer in Gateshead, to develop a case study focused on reducing energy usage, capturing and reusing waste heat and exploring the use of additives and alternative product mixtures to improve the material properties of their products. Zentia’s factory produces ceiling tiles formed from a wet mixture of newsprint, starch, fibreglass and other minerals, which are then pressed and dried by passing through a long series of gas-fired ovens. The manufacturing process generates large amounts of steam and hot air and offers significant potential for heat and water recovery projects. Initially brought into the TransFIRe programme by Professor Justin Perry and Dr Matt Unthank, Chemical Technical Working Group members from Northumbria University, to explore the use of alternative tile coatings, the engineering and management team at Zentia also expressed interest [...]

Joanna Johnson2023-02-27T15:04:46+00:00January 30th, 2023|

Mapping energy and material flows for the foundation industries

Mapping energy and material flows for the foundation industries

As the costs of goods and services continue to rise and the world looks for ways to become more efficient and sustainable, an approach called Gentani is being used to help reduce waste and inefficiency. Gentani is a Japanese word that means output level or consumption rate, but in these circumstances, it means the minimum resource you need to carry out a process. Using this approach, over the past few months TransFIRe’s Workstream 1 (WS1) have been able to map the energy and material flows at the UK level for all six of the foundation industries (cement, chemicals, ceramics, metals, plastics and paper) to identify potential opportunities for improvement and symbiosis. The researchers are also developing an approach to present the combined energy and material flows that will allow reporting data in a concise, transparent and flexible manner. The new approach has the flexibility to scale from company to [...]

Joanna Johnson2024-01-29T11:33:36+00:00January 30th, 2023|