chemicals and circular economy: challenges related to
CHEMICALS AND CIRCULAR ECONOMY: CHALLENGES RELATED TO LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT L. XANTHOPOULOU*, T.F. ASTRUP* *
Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Anker Engelunds Vej 1, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
SUMMARY: The idea of circular economy has gained significant attention, being promoted as a novel concept to minimize consumption of natural resources and to exclude waste from our system. While society has prioritized a need for increased recycling rates, accumulation of hazardous substances in closed material loops has become of particular concern, as it poses risks on public health protection. To answer a question of whether recycling is always the most sustainable option, a need for a suitable decision support tool has occurred. While Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been widely used to support decisions concerning resource utilization with related environmental benefits, it fails to address some of the major challenges in circular economy context, such as chemicals trapping and accumulation with related health effects. This paper serves to investigate for different modelling and assessment principles, such as risk assessment, intended for implementation into LCA tool, in order to capture human exposure to chemicals embedded in circulated materials and associated risks.
1. INTRODUCTION Circular economy is a complex term that includes aspects from eco-design, over business models and consumer behavior, to remanufacturing based on secondary materials. The concept of circular economy has been often applied to increase recycling and waste utilization. Circular economy aims to promote minimum resources consumption and increased sustainability. The idea of a ‘circular economy’ has arisen as a promising solution to the overexploitation of the natural resources of our planet. In December 2015, the EU set as a priority a transition to such a model in its EU Action Plan. Though, the concept of circular economy lacks a clear definition at EU level, the Commission has committed to achieve ‘the transition to a more circular economy, where the value of products, materials and resources is maintained in the economy for as long as it is possible’ (Commission Action Plan, 2015). Demand for increased recycling rates to achieve circular economy goals, has been often misleading, when disregarding quality and human health safety. While society wishes to increase circular economy solutions through increased material recycling, the risk of unintended spreading of chemical substances from waste into new products also increases. By definition given by Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in a true circular economy, consumption occurs only in effective bio-cycles, where resources are regenerated; elsewhere use replaces consumption and resources are recovered and restored. That means continuous circulation of materials.
Proceedings Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium/ 2 - 6 October 2017 S. Margherita di Pula, Cagliari, Italy / © 2017 by CISA Publisher, Italy
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
Recourses recovered from waste, intended for utilization as secondary raw materials, often contain contamination chemicals or additives to achieve specific material properties. These chemicals might be reintroduced into new products. While chemicals may be removed to some extent through industrial processing, the risk is that some chemicals are either i) accumulated in consumer products or ii) spread in society through new application routes. This means that we may – unwillingly – create environmental problems for future generations through our recycling today. Despite being introduced as a sustainable concept, the truly sustainability and social benefits of circular economy remain debatable. Chemical risks associated with circular economy are generally very poorly addressed. In many cases data availability is very limited and more research is needed in this area.
2. CIRCULAR ECONOMY AND CHEMICALS Taking into consideration chemicals in materials life cycles, when moving to a circular economy, a particular concern is a risk of increased exposure of society to problematic substances, trapped or accumulated in material cycles. There are many challenges associated with circularity and closing the loops of technical materials. One case is that products can contain hazardous chemicals that are legal to use when these products are being manufactured, but might be banned after. These chemicals, if following the circular economy paradigm, will continue their circulation for years or decades before they will be faced out. It can even be that the safety assessment of chemicals simply has not anticipated a high level of recycling of products containing the chemicals at the end of life, or that there is a lack of clear information about the chemicals in materials being discarded. Articles manufactured outside EU often contain restricted substances, which are very poorly controlled when imported and sold on European market. (Whaley, 2015)(CHEMTrust, 2015) Complex mixtures of substances might be created through a certain use or waste management. Although, chemicals added to materials are regulated under the current EU legislation, the chemicals indirectly added through recycling process are poorly regulated (Lee et al., 2014). In fact, to allow continuation of recycled materials, The Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) EU Regulation has allowed the recovery of materials containing POPs at higher concentrations than the limits set for virgin materials. For example, the brominated flame retardant (pentaBDE) is only allowed in concentrations below 0.001 percent by weight when produced entirely from virgin material, but if produced partially or fully from recycled materials the concentration level is significantly higher 0.1 percent (POPs Regulation, 2004). In all these cases, contamination of material cycles is expected. There are a number of supporting examples found in literature, where the presence of chemicals of high concern in products recycled or aimed for recycling is well known from experimental data. It is evident that chemicals, such as phthalates, are present in the waste paper and might be re-introduced into new products and accumulated due to recycling process (Pivnenko et al., 2015; Pivnenko et al., 2016). Lee at al. (2014) also suggested increased exposure to phthalates of 2-year-old children in connection to paper recycling. Another example is toxic flame retardant chemicals, potentially from electronic waste, that were indicated to be recycled into plastic children’s toys (Chen et al., 2009; DiGangi & Strakova, 2015). Black plastics used in kitchen goods were, as well, found to be contaminated with brominated flame retardants at concentrations above limit, presumably via the plastic recycling process
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
(Samsonek & Puype, 2013). A need for change from quantity to quality has emerged. Concepts of ‘clean cycles’ strategies and supplementing quantitative goals of recycling with qualitative goals has been previously voiced (Velis and Brunner, 2013)(Whaley, 2015) highlighting that perhaps not everything should be recycled. However, there is currently no single decision support tool that can on its own provide an answer.
3. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT AS DESION SUPPORT TOOL Today, waste material recycling or utilization is accounted typically based on material quantities being routed back into the economy for use in industry. Existing environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modelling is traditionally implemented for quantification of environmental savings associated with recycling and substitution of virgin material production. While LCA accounts for a wide range of toxic emissions to the environment, the contents and potential spreading of chemicals via the recovered waste materials themselves are not addressed. In circular economy, there are two systems of circular material flows: an ecosystemintegrated biological material flow system and a closed-loop flow technical material flow system. (Ellen MacArthur Foundation) In biological cycles of circular economy, energy is recovered through diverse bio-processes, while biological materials are integrated back to the biosphere and the chemicals are emitted to the environment at the end of their life cycle. In this case, all the final emissions to the environment are captured and calculated by the existing LCA modelling principles. Therefore, in this study the biological cycles are considered to be covered by LCA tool and will not be further included. The problem is anticipated to occur within the technical material cycle. Technical materials are those which cannot integrate with biosphere and in circular economy perspective are recirculated in closed loops as re-used and recycled materials. Critical risks to human health, associated with circular economy and increased exposure to problematic chemicals trapped in technical material cycle, described earlier in this paper, are not captured by LCA and are not part of decision-making today. LCA method is incomplete in assessing health effects from recycling of technical materials, such as plastics, paper, etc. To support decisions on whether everything should be recycled and circulated in closed loops, in a situation where hazardous chemicals are present, LCA tool should be complemented with other tools, such as risk assessment (RA) and material flow analysis (MFA) to capture the actual fate of substances during recycling, or new modelling principles should be integrated. Attempts have been previously practiced to integrate RA screening into LCA in order to include consumer exposure to products containing toxic chemicals (Csiszar et al., 2016). This approach of a more complete assessment should be of major importance when considering consumer products made of recycled materials, balancing consumer safety and savings of resources. There are several obstacles in combining RA with LCA due to different purposes, indicators and mechanisms of two tools. LCA is focusing on a functional unit of a product or a system, whereas in RA there is no functional unit and the focus is on total tonnage of one specific chemical substance. RA is an absolute assessment, while LCA is a comparative assessment in terms of different ways of achieving functional unit.(Flemström et al., 2004) However, since toxicological and eco-toxicological impacts indicated by RA are part of LCA impact coverage, there is an overlapping where RA approach can be adopted to serve LCA. The idea is to apply principles implemented in RA into LCA models to evaluate human
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
toxicity impacts coming from human exposure to recycled materials. These principles will be called here Risk Evaluation (RE). Figure 1 illustrates the combined approach for LCA modelling practice with RE of a product in circular economy context. In this approach, the use stage scenarios should be evaluated for risks to consumer’s health through near field exposure routes such as dermal contact, oral exposure, inhalation, etc. RE, referring to RA methodology, should include exposure evaluation and hazard evaluation. Exposure evaluation is to be performed based on European guidelines for consumer exposure assessment and a use of simple linear dose/response equations, to evaluate specific scenarios. However, there are still many challenges and issues to be solved in implementation of the described approach. One practical difficulty is the transition from RA indicators (toxic effect, risk, response) to comparative toxicity units and to LCA single impact category score. Another problem is that, the risk evaluation is very scenario specific, which will be based on specific assumptions related to that exact scenario and product. That increases a level of uncertainty in the result and makes it challenging for generalization.
Figure 1: Illustration of modelling principles, using Risk Assessment principles (Risk Evaluation) to evaluate near field exposure to chemicals in recycled products in LCA 4. CONCLUSIONS Circulation of hazardous materials in technical cycles creates risks to human health and poses ideal realization of circular economy at question. Prove of contamination of recycled materials exist and a need for evaluation of actual benefits and disadvantages has arisen. Recycling cannot be considered always the most sustainable option, unless decision is based on a balance between the value of resource and hazard concern to public health. There is a clear need for a complete decision support tool or guideline. LCA tool on its own fails to provide a robust answer for end-of-life scenario alternatives, when talking about health effects. Application of RA principles in LCA can serve as a possible solution. However, there many challenges in integrating RA parts into the LCA tool, due to many differences between two tools. Nevertheless, the evaluation of risks is scenario dependent and product oriented, creating a lot of uncertainties when trying to generalize the outcome.
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
LCA tool can be used for evaluation of recycling scenarios, only when completed with risk evaluation, either integrated or supplementary, and more research is required in this area. A fundamental change in paradigm is needed with respect to LCA modelling of waste recycling and circular economy solutions. A comprehensive decision support framework is of central and increasing importance in evaluation of circular economy solutions, increasing their implementation, providing answers to decision makers and addressing challenges.
REFERENCES CHEMTrust. (2015). Policy Briefing. Circular Economy and Chemicals : Creating a clean and sustainable circle. Retrieved from: http://www.chemtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/chemtrustcirculareconomy-aug2015.pdf Chen, S. J., Ma, Y. J., Wang, J., Chen, D., Luo, X. J., & Mai, B. X. (2009). Brominated Flame Retardants in Children’s Toys: Concentration, Composition, and Children’s Exposure and Risk Assessment. Environmental Science & Technology, 43(11), 4200–4206. Commission Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European and social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, “Closing the loop – An EU Action plan for the Circular Economy” (COM(2015)614 final) (“Commission Action Plan”). Csiszar, S. A., Meyer, D. E., Dionisio, K. L., Egeghy, P., Isaacs, K. K., Price, P. S., Bare, J. C. (2016). Conceptual Framework to Extend Life Cycle Assessment Using Near-Field Human Exposure Modeling and High-Throughput Tools for Chemicals. Environmental Science and Technology, 50(21), 11922–11934. DiGangi, J., & Strakova, J. (2015). Toxic Toy or Toxic Waste: Recycling POPs into New Products, Summary for Decision-Makers. Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2012). Toward the circular economy: Economic and business rationale for an accelerated transition. Vol.1. Isle of Wight, UK: EMF. Flemström, K., Carlson, R., Erixon M., (2004). Relationships between Life Cycle Assessment and Risk Assessment – Potentials and Obstacles. Industrial Environmental Informatics (IMI), Chalmers University of Technology, report 5379 Lee, J., Pedersen, A. B., & Thomsen, M. (2014a). Are the resource strategies for sustainable development sustainable? Downside of a zero waste society with circular resource flows. Environmental Technology and Innovation, 1–2(C), 46–54. Lee, J., Pedersen, A. B., & Thomsen, M. (2014b). The influence of resource strategies on childhood phthalate exposure-The role of REACH in a zero waste society. Environment International, 73, 312–322. Pivnenko, K., Eriksson, E., & Astrup, T. F. (2015). Chemicals in material cycles. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Waste Management and Landfill Symposium, Sardinia 2015. Pivnenko, K., Laner, D., & Astrup, T. F. (2016). Material Cycles and Chemicals: Dynamic Material Flow Analysis of Contaminants in Paper Recycling. Environmental Science & Technology, acs.est.6b01791. Regulation (EC) No 850/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April (2004) on persistent organic pollutants, (OJ L 158 30.4.2004, p. 7) (“POPs Regulation”) Samsonek, J., & Puype, F. (2013). Occurrence of brominated flame retardants in black thermo cups and selected kitchen utensils purchased on the European market. Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A, 30(11). Velis, C. a., Brunner, P. H. (2013). Recycling and resource efficiency : it is time for a change from quantity to quality. Waste Management & Research, 31(6), 539–540. Whaley, P. (2015). Chemicals in the circular economy. Health and Environment, (86B).
Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, Anker Engelunds Vej 1, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark
SUMMARY: The idea of circular economy has gained significant attention, being promoted as a novel concept to minimize consumption of natural resources and to exclude waste from our system. While society has prioritized a need for increased recycling rates, accumulation of hazardous substances in closed material loops has become of particular concern, as it poses risks on public health protection. To answer a question of whether recycling is always the most sustainable option, a need for a suitable decision support tool has occurred. While Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been widely used to support decisions concerning resource utilization with related environmental benefits, it fails to address some of the major challenges in circular economy context, such as chemicals trapping and accumulation with related health effects. This paper serves to investigate for different modelling and assessment principles, such as risk assessment, intended for implementation into LCA tool, in order to capture human exposure to chemicals embedded in circulated materials and associated risks.
1. INTRODUCTION Circular economy is a complex term that includes aspects from eco-design, over business models and consumer behavior, to remanufacturing based on secondary materials. The concept of circular economy has been often applied to increase recycling and waste utilization. Circular economy aims to promote minimum resources consumption and increased sustainability. The idea of a ‘circular economy’ has arisen as a promising solution to the overexploitation of the natural resources of our planet. In December 2015, the EU set as a priority a transition to such a model in its EU Action Plan. Though, the concept of circular economy lacks a clear definition at EU level, the Commission has committed to achieve ‘the transition to a more circular economy, where the value of products, materials and resources is maintained in the economy for as long as it is possible’ (Commission Action Plan, 2015). Demand for increased recycling rates to achieve circular economy goals, has been often misleading, when disregarding quality and human health safety. While society wishes to increase circular economy solutions through increased material recycling, the risk of unintended spreading of chemical substances from waste into new products also increases. By definition given by Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in a true circular economy, consumption occurs only in effective bio-cycles, where resources are regenerated; elsewhere use replaces consumption and resources are recovered and restored. That means continuous circulation of materials.
Proceedings Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium/ 2 - 6 October 2017 S. Margherita di Pula, Cagliari, Italy / © 2017 by CISA Publisher, Italy
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
Recourses recovered from waste, intended for utilization as secondary raw materials, often contain contamination chemicals or additives to achieve specific material properties. These chemicals might be reintroduced into new products. While chemicals may be removed to some extent through industrial processing, the risk is that some chemicals are either i) accumulated in consumer products or ii) spread in society through new application routes. This means that we may – unwillingly – create environmental problems for future generations through our recycling today. Despite being introduced as a sustainable concept, the truly sustainability and social benefits of circular economy remain debatable. Chemical risks associated with circular economy are generally very poorly addressed. In many cases data availability is very limited and more research is needed in this area.
2. CIRCULAR ECONOMY AND CHEMICALS Taking into consideration chemicals in materials life cycles, when moving to a circular economy, a particular concern is a risk of increased exposure of society to problematic substances, trapped or accumulated in material cycles. There are many challenges associated with circularity and closing the loops of technical materials. One case is that products can contain hazardous chemicals that are legal to use when these products are being manufactured, but might be banned after. These chemicals, if following the circular economy paradigm, will continue their circulation for years or decades before they will be faced out. It can even be that the safety assessment of chemicals simply has not anticipated a high level of recycling of products containing the chemicals at the end of life, or that there is a lack of clear information about the chemicals in materials being discarded. Articles manufactured outside EU often contain restricted substances, which are very poorly controlled when imported and sold on European market. (Whaley, 2015)(CHEMTrust, 2015) Complex mixtures of substances might be created through a certain use or waste management. Although, chemicals added to materials are regulated under the current EU legislation, the chemicals indirectly added through recycling process are poorly regulated (Lee et al., 2014). In fact, to allow continuation of recycled materials, The Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) EU Regulation has allowed the recovery of materials containing POPs at higher concentrations than the limits set for virgin materials. For example, the brominated flame retardant (pentaBDE) is only allowed in concentrations below 0.001 percent by weight when produced entirely from virgin material, but if produced partially or fully from recycled materials the concentration level is significantly higher 0.1 percent (POPs Regulation, 2004). In all these cases, contamination of material cycles is expected. There are a number of supporting examples found in literature, where the presence of chemicals of high concern in products recycled or aimed for recycling is well known from experimental data. It is evident that chemicals, such as phthalates, are present in the waste paper and might be re-introduced into new products and accumulated due to recycling process (Pivnenko et al., 2015; Pivnenko et al., 2016). Lee at al. (2014) also suggested increased exposure to phthalates of 2-year-old children in connection to paper recycling. Another example is toxic flame retardant chemicals, potentially from electronic waste, that were indicated to be recycled into plastic children’s toys (Chen et al., 2009; DiGangi & Strakova, 2015). Black plastics used in kitchen goods were, as well, found to be contaminated with brominated flame retardants at concentrations above limit, presumably via the plastic recycling process
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
(Samsonek & Puype, 2013). A need for change from quantity to quality has emerged. Concepts of ‘clean cycles’ strategies and supplementing quantitative goals of recycling with qualitative goals has been previously voiced (Velis and Brunner, 2013)(Whaley, 2015) highlighting that perhaps not everything should be recycled. However, there is currently no single decision support tool that can on its own provide an answer.
3. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT AS DESION SUPPORT TOOL Today, waste material recycling or utilization is accounted typically based on material quantities being routed back into the economy for use in industry. Existing environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) modelling is traditionally implemented for quantification of environmental savings associated with recycling and substitution of virgin material production. While LCA accounts for a wide range of toxic emissions to the environment, the contents and potential spreading of chemicals via the recovered waste materials themselves are not addressed. In circular economy, there are two systems of circular material flows: an ecosystemintegrated biological material flow system and a closed-loop flow technical material flow system. (Ellen MacArthur Foundation) In biological cycles of circular economy, energy is recovered through diverse bio-processes, while biological materials are integrated back to the biosphere and the chemicals are emitted to the environment at the end of their life cycle. In this case, all the final emissions to the environment are captured and calculated by the existing LCA modelling principles. Therefore, in this study the biological cycles are considered to be covered by LCA tool and will not be further included. The problem is anticipated to occur within the technical material cycle. Technical materials are those which cannot integrate with biosphere and in circular economy perspective are recirculated in closed loops as re-used and recycled materials. Critical risks to human health, associated with circular economy and increased exposure to problematic chemicals trapped in technical material cycle, described earlier in this paper, are not captured by LCA and are not part of decision-making today. LCA method is incomplete in assessing health effects from recycling of technical materials, such as plastics, paper, etc. To support decisions on whether everything should be recycled and circulated in closed loops, in a situation where hazardous chemicals are present, LCA tool should be complemented with other tools, such as risk assessment (RA) and material flow analysis (MFA) to capture the actual fate of substances during recycling, or new modelling principles should be integrated. Attempts have been previously practiced to integrate RA screening into LCA in order to include consumer exposure to products containing toxic chemicals (Csiszar et al., 2016). This approach of a more complete assessment should be of major importance when considering consumer products made of recycled materials, balancing consumer safety and savings of resources. There are several obstacles in combining RA with LCA due to different purposes, indicators and mechanisms of two tools. LCA is focusing on a functional unit of a product or a system, whereas in RA there is no functional unit and the focus is on total tonnage of one specific chemical substance. RA is an absolute assessment, while LCA is a comparative assessment in terms of different ways of achieving functional unit.(Flemström et al., 2004) However, since toxicological and eco-toxicological impacts indicated by RA are part of LCA impact coverage, there is an overlapping where RA approach can be adopted to serve LCA. The idea is to apply principles implemented in RA into LCA models to evaluate human
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
toxicity impacts coming from human exposure to recycled materials. These principles will be called here Risk Evaluation (RE). Figure 1 illustrates the combined approach for LCA modelling practice with RE of a product in circular economy context. In this approach, the use stage scenarios should be evaluated for risks to consumer’s health through near field exposure routes such as dermal contact, oral exposure, inhalation, etc. RE, referring to RA methodology, should include exposure evaluation and hazard evaluation. Exposure evaluation is to be performed based on European guidelines for consumer exposure assessment and a use of simple linear dose/response equations, to evaluate specific scenarios. However, there are still many challenges and issues to be solved in implementation of the described approach. One practical difficulty is the transition from RA indicators (toxic effect, risk, response) to comparative toxicity units and to LCA single impact category score. Another problem is that, the risk evaluation is very scenario specific, which will be based on specific assumptions related to that exact scenario and product. That increases a level of uncertainty in the result and makes it challenging for generalization.
Figure 1: Illustration of modelling principles, using Risk Assessment principles (Risk Evaluation) to evaluate near field exposure to chemicals in recycled products in LCA 4. CONCLUSIONS Circulation of hazardous materials in technical cycles creates risks to human health and poses ideal realization of circular economy at question. Prove of contamination of recycled materials exist and a need for evaluation of actual benefits and disadvantages has arisen. Recycling cannot be considered always the most sustainable option, unless decision is based on a balance between the value of resource and hazard concern to public health. There is a clear need for a complete decision support tool or guideline. LCA tool on its own fails to provide a robust answer for end-of-life scenario alternatives, when talking about health effects. Application of RA principles in LCA can serve as a possible solution. However, there many challenges in integrating RA parts into the LCA tool, due to many differences between two tools. Nevertheless, the evaluation of risks is scenario dependent and product oriented, creating a lot of uncertainties when trying to generalize the outcome.
Sardinia 2017 / Sixteenth International Waste Management and Landfill Symposium / 2 - 6 October 2017
LCA tool can be used for evaluation of recycling scenarios, only when completed with risk evaluation, either integrated or supplementary, and more research is required in this area. A fundamental change in paradigm is needed with respect to LCA modelling of waste recycling and circular economy solutions. A comprehensive decision support framework is of central and increasing importance in evaluation of circular economy solutions, increasing their implementation, providing answers to decision makers and addressing challenges.
REFERENCES CHEMTrust. (2015). Policy Briefing. Circular Economy and Chemicals : Creating a clean and sustainable circle. Retrieved from: http://www.chemtrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/chemtrustcirculareconomy-aug2015.pdf Chen, S. J., Ma, Y. J., Wang, J., Chen, D., Luo, X. J., & Mai, B. X. (2009). Brominated Flame Retardants in Children’s Toys: Concentration, Composition, and Children’s Exposure and Risk Assessment. Environmental Science & Technology, 43(11), 4200–4206. Commission Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European and social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, “Closing the loop – An EU Action plan for the Circular Economy” (COM(2015)614 final) (“Commission Action Plan”). Csiszar, S. A., Meyer, D. E., Dionisio, K. L., Egeghy, P., Isaacs, K. K., Price, P. S., Bare, J. C. (2016). Conceptual Framework to Extend Life Cycle Assessment Using Near-Field Human Exposure Modeling and High-Throughput Tools for Chemicals. Environmental Science and Technology, 50(21), 11922–11934. DiGangi, J., & Strakova, J. (2015). Toxic Toy or Toxic Waste: Recycling POPs into New Products, Summary for Decision-Makers. Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2012). Toward the circular economy: Economic and business rationale for an accelerated transition. Vol.1. Isle of Wight, UK: EMF. Flemström, K., Carlson, R., Erixon M., (2004). Relationships between Life Cycle Assessment and Risk Assessment – Potentials and Obstacles. Industrial Environmental Informatics (IMI), Chalmers University of Technology, report 5379 Lee, J., Pedersen, A. B., & Thomsen, M. (2014a). Are the resource strategies for sustainable development sustainable? Downside of a zero waste society with circular resource flows. Environmental Technology and Innovation, 1–2(C), 46–54. Lee, J., Pedersen, A. B., & Thomsen, M. (2014b). The influence of resource strategies on childhood phthalate exposure-The role of REACH in a zero waste society. Environment International, 73, 312–322. Pivnenko, K., Eriksson, E., & Astrup, T. F. (2015). Chemicals in material cycles. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Waste Management and Landfill Symposium, Sardinia 2015. Pivnenko, K., Laner, D., & Astrup, T. F. (2016). Material Cycles and Chemicals: Dynamic Material Flow Analysis of Contaminants in Paper Recycling. Environmental Science & Technology, acs.est.6b01791. Regulation (EC) No 850/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April (2004) on persistent organic pollutants, (OJ L 158 30.4.2004, p. 7) (“POPs Regulation”) Samsonek, J., & Puype, F. (2013). Occurrence of brominated flame retardants in black thermo cups and selected kitchen utensils purchased on the European market. Food Additives & Contaminants: Part A, 30(11). Velis, C. a., Brunner, P. H. (2013). Recycling and resource efficiency : it is time for a change from quantity to quality. Waste Management & Research, 31(6), 539–540. Whaley, P. (2015). Chemicals in the circular economy. Health and Environment, (86B).
