Complex Value Optimisation for Resource Recovery from Waste (C-VORR)

废物资源回收的复杂价值优化 (C-VORR)

• 批准号: NE/L014149/1
• 负责人: Phil Purnell
• 金额: $ 178.86万
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2014 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FL014149%2F1
• 关键词: Complex; Value; Optimisation; Resource; Recovery

Our modern industrial society produces increasing amounts of waste. Yet many of these wastes might either contain useful materials (perhaps metals or nutrients) or could themselves be used as an input for another process (maybe as a fuel or raw material). Recovering these resources from wastes is an important part of waste management and normally involves collecting wastes from an industrial process, organisation or community and then carrying out sorting, reprocessing, recycling or incineration. All these activities have benefits and impacts in many different ways, for example: * the economy: benefits come from selling the recovered materials, while the impacts are the costs of collection, processing etc; * our society: providing reprocessing jobs is a benefit, at the cost of harsh rules on rubbish collection; * the environment: preventing harmful materials from being dumped helps the environment, but reprocessing may involve carbon emissions or use of more resources; * our health: keeping the streets clean prevents disease, but some recycling jobs may be dangerous.When choosing which resource recovery system is best, it is difficult to weigh up all these factors. Often, we simply 'bolt on' a piece of technology to the end of the process, worrying mainly whether it is cost-effective and often assuming that because we are recovering resources, the environmental impact is automatically good. But many recovery systems have 'hidden' impacts that require complex analysis to untangle. Studies have shown that in some cases, collection and recycling of plastic bottles produces more carbon dioxide and uses more resources than simply making new bottles; a hidden environmental impact. In fact, much of our plastic waste is exported to the Far East, where it is reprocessed by workers in unhealthy conditions paid very poor wages; a hidden social and health impact. Until we have a method for weighing up all these factors, poor decisions driven by faith in simplistic ideas such as 'the waste heirarchy' will continue to be made. In the C-VORR project, we will bring together scientists, engineers, mathematicians and economists to help build this method. Working with our industry partners and international experts, we will look at processes that produce waste; not just at the 'end of the pipe' , but upstream and downstream throughout the whole system. We will examine the flows of materials through these systems and see how their 'complex value' - the balance of their economic, social, environmental and health benefits and impacts - changes as we adjust the system. This will allow us to identify the adjustments - perhaps a change in the way a product is made, or a new recycling process, or using the waste from one system as the input to another - that give us the best value overall; not just in terms of money, but also in terms of the effect on our health, happiness and environment. To do this, we will need to combine scientific and engineering methods that measure flows with ways of measuring benefits and impacts, checking how these vary with time and space. We will have to completely redefine value, using unorthodox economic thinking to help us. If we get this right, then we can completely change the way that we look at recovering resource from waste, and instead talk about preventing value from being dissipated into waste in the first place. We will have a tool that will not only let us decide which recovery technology - or change to the process - is best for society and the environment, but that can also identify business opportunities to recover previous hidden value. It will allow us to move away from simplistic ideas about recycling and reprocessing that may have unintended consequences, and give us all a more sophisticated understanding of how to best preserve our scarce resources, our precious environment and the quality of not just our lives but those connected to us; in this globalised world, that's everyone.

我们的现代工业社会产生越来越多的废物。然而，许多这些废物可能含有有用的材料（可能是金属或营养素），或者本身可以用作另一个过程的输入（可能作为燃料或原材料）。从废物中回收这些资源是废物管理的重要组成部分，通常涉及从工业过程、组织或社区收集废物，然后进行分类、再加工、回收或焚烧。所有这些活动都以多种不同方式产生效益和影响，例如： * 经济：效益来自销售回收材料，而影响则包括收集、加工等成本； * 我们的社会：提供后处理工作是一种好处，但代价是严格的垃圾收集规则； * 环境：防止有害物质倾倒有助于环境，但再加工可能涉及碳排放或使用更多资源； * 我们的健康：保持街道清洁可以预防疾病，但一些回收工作可能很危险。在选择哪种资源回收系统最好时，很难权衡所有这些因素。通常，我们只是简单地将一项技术“附加”到流程的最后，主要担心它是否具有成本效益，并且经常假设因为我们正在回收资源，所以对环境的影响自然是好的。但许多恢复系统都有“隐藏”的影响，需要进行复杂的分析才能解决。研究表明，在某些情况下，收集和回收塑料瓶比简单地制造新瓶子会产生更多的二氧化碳并使用更多的资源；隐藏的环境影响。事实上，我们的大部分塑料废物都出口到远东，在那里由工人在不健康的条件下进行再加工，他们的工资很低；隐藏的社会和健康影响。在我们找到一种权衡所有这些因素的方法之前，由于相信“浪费等级制”等简单化想法而做出的错误决策将继续出现。在 C-VORR 项目中，我们将汇集科学家、工程师、数学家和经济学家来帮助构建这种方法。我们将与我们的行业合作伙伴和国际专家合作，研究产生废物的流程；不仅在“管道的末端”，而且在整个系统的上游和下游。我们将检查通过这些系统的物质流动，并了解它们的“复杂价值”（经济、社会、环境和健康效益与影响的平衡）如何随着我们调整系统而变化。这将使我们能够确定调整——也许是产品制造方式的改变，或者新的回收工艺，或者使用一个系统的废物作为另一个系统的输入——这给我们带来了整体最佳价值；不仅仅是金钱方面，还包括对我们的健康、幸福和环境的影响。为此，我们需要将测量流量的科学和工程方法与测量效益和影响的方法结合起来，检查它们如何随时间和空间变化。我们将不得不彻底重新定义价值，利用非正统的经济思维来帮助我们。如果我们做到了这一点，那么我们就可以完全改变我们从废物中回收资源的方式，而是首先谈论防止价值被浪费成废物。我们将拥有一个工具，不仅可以让我们决定哪种回收技术（或流程的改变）对社会和环境最有利，而且还可以识别恢复以前隐藏价值的商机。它将让我们摆脱可能产生意想不到后果的关于回收和再加工的简单化想法，并让我们所有人对如何最好地保护我们的稀缺资源、我们宝贵的环境以及我们的生活质量和与我们相关的人有更深入的理解；在这个全球化的世界里，每个人都是如此。

项目成果

Complex-value optimisation of power plant systems co-firing coal with biomass and SRF

燃煤、生物质和 SRF 混烧电厂系统的复值优化

• 发表时间: 2016
• 作者: Eleni Iacovidou

Smart technologies: Enablers of construction components reuse?

• 发表时间: 2016-06
• 作者: E. Iacovidou;P. Purnell

Participatory Situational Analysis: How can policy and regulation support resource recovery? Synthesis workshop report

参与式态势分析：政策法规如何支持资源回收？

• 发表时间: 2018
• 作者: Anne P.M Velenturf

Revaluing Recycling

重估回收

• 发表时间: 2018
• 期刊: Chartered Institution of Wastes Management journal
• 作者: David C. Wilson

Compost Oversize: A Valuable Resource Left Unused

超大堆肥：未被利用的宝贵资源

• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Waste Management World
• 作者: E. Iacovidou