Integrating social aspects to improve resource recovery

To reach circular economy goals, waste management systems should be improved to allow for a higher degree of recyclability, remanufacture, and reuse of discarded items. Waste management is a complex sociotechnical system, and in the case of household waste, understanding the social aspects of the system is crucial to improving its performance. This interaction between the technical and social aspects of resource recovery has been widely discussed, but not applied often enough in the design and development of the system. Evidence of this is shown by the many difficulties users face when sorting waste for recycling. These difficulties can arise given; the lack of knowledge about the waste management system, the design of the items to be sorted, inconvenience of the sorting infrastructure, among other factors.

This Research Topic aims to gather recent studies that integrate both the technical and social aspects of the waste management system, focusing on improving sustainable waste management practices for municipal and household waste. Given the necessary shift towards the circular economy, priority will be given to studies focusing on the higher steps of the waste management hierarchy (i.e., waste prevention, reuse, and recycling).

Article types in this collection should include case studies, reviews, or original research. A non-exhaustive list of topics would include:

• Packaging and/or product design and its relation to sorting behavior
• Interventions and changing behavior for waste and wastewater reduction
• Design of segregated waste collection points
• Interventions to improve waste sorting behavior
• Methodologies to assess sorting behavior changes (LCA, Waste composition studies, collection statistics, or others)
• Application of user-centered design methodologies to the resource recovery field

Keywords: Resource recovery, Circular Economy, Waste Management, Product End of Life, Sustainable Design, Design, Sorting Behavior.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.