Because of increasing environmental concerns/legislative pressure for plastics waste and rapid increases in the cost of petroleum, the development of "environmental friendly" materials has attracted extensive intere...Because of increasing environmental concerns/legislative pressure for plastics waste and rapid increases in the cost of petroleum, the development of "environmental friendly" materials has attracted extensive interest. Recently, bioplastics are one of the most innovative environmental friendly materials developed. Therefore, this paper will look at aspects of the bioplastics from the perspective of sustainability, advantages/disadvantages and standards. The global bioplastics market is thought to be growing at a rate of 20%-25% per year. They have some advantages such as lower carbon footprint, independence, energy efficiency, and eco-safety. However, they have some disadvantages such as high cost, recycling, reducing raw materials, misused of terms and lack of legislation. For the sustainability, recycling systems and production technology may be developed for bioplastics and by-product should be used for their production. Also, there is much standardization about them. It is important to have comparable international standard methods. Therefore, there is an urgent need to standardize all details. A new guide and standard for just bioplastics should be developed for production, usage and bioplastic waste management for every country in the world.展开更多
To achieve a sustainable building's behaviour and preserve the environmental balance, three laws must be taken into account (l) the resources' consume must not be faster than the rate at which nature can restock t...To achieve a sustainable building's behaviour and preserve the environmental balance, three laws must be taken into account (l) the resources' consume must not be faster than the rate at which nature can restock them, (2) the creation of systems that consume maximum energy-quality and (3) the maximization of the use of renewable and recycled materials. Therefore, the buildings' rehabilitation process must increase, instead of the proliferation of new buildings, in order to provide the sustainability of the built environment and minimize its ecological impact. The sustainable rehabilitation process is even more difficult in historical areas, in general sited in central zones of the urban mesh, with fragile comfort conditions and a rigid structure. In this paper, different evaluation tools for sustainable buildings were analysed in order to provide a set of evaluation criteria to be applied in the rehabilitation process in historical zones.展开更多
文摘Because of increasing environmental concerns/legislative pressure for plastics waste and rapid increases in the cost of petroleum, the development of "environmental friendly" materials has attracted extensive interest. Recently, bioplastics are one of the most innovative environmental friendly materials developed. Therefore, this paper will look at aspects of the bioplastics from the perspective of sustainability, advantages/disadvantages and standards. The global bioplastics market is thought to be growing at a rate of 20%-25% per year. They have some advantages such as lower carbon footprint, independence, energy efficiency, and eco-safety. However, they have some disadvantages such as high cost, recycling, reducing raw materials, misused of terms and lack of legislation. For the sustainability, recycling systems and production technology may be developed for bioplastics and by-product should be used for their production. Also, there is much standardization about them. It is important to have comparable international standard methods. Therefore, there is an urgent need to standardize all details. A new guide and standard for just bioplastics should be developed for production, usage and bioplastic waste management for every country in the world.
文摘To achieve a sustainable building's behaviour and preserve the environmental balance, three laws must be taken into account (l) the resources' consume must not be faster than the rate at which nature can restock them, (2) the creation of systems that consume maximum energy-quality and (3) the maximization of the use of renewable and recycled materials. Therefore, the buildings' rehabilitation process must increase, instead of the proliferation of new buildings, in order to provide the sustainability of the built environment and minimize its ecological impact. The sustainable rehabilitation process is even more difficult in historical areas, in general sited in central zones of the urban mesh, with fragile comfort conditions and a rigid structure. In this paper, different evaluation tools for sustainable buildings were analysed in order to provide a set of evaluation criteria to be applied in the rehabilitation process in historical zones.