Nathalia Lima Cano

University of Pittsburgh | Pitt · Civil and Environmental Engineering

The circular economy (CE) promotes sustainability by minimizing resource consumption and encouraging reuse, recycling, and recovery. Although the Global North has advanced CE policies, the Global South struggles with weak waste management and social inequality. This article creates and tests the "Circular Technical Network" (CTN) framework, which a...

We uncover the systemic complexities of a polymer recycling chain insufficiently investigated, focusing on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) – a core contributor to plastics pollution in the Global South, via mismanaged waste. Rigid blow-moulded HDPE is widely used in retail packaging and fast-moving consumer goods containers; it is also sought-afte...

Background The healthcare sector in the United States has increased its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% since 2010 and today has the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions globally. Assessing the environmental impact and material use through the methods of life cycle assessment (LCA) and material flow analysis of healthcare procedures, product...

While surgical outcomes continue to be optimized through innovation, there are many practices in the OR with similar outcomes but variable climate impacts. This session discussed the benefits and pitfalls of implementing life cycle assessments (LCAs) in the OR to leverage actionable change with quantitative results. Experts discussed LCA applicatio...

One application of plastics that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic is for social distancing plastic shields, or protective barriers, made from polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) such as transparent face guards. Although available for other applications, end-of-life impacts for barriers are currently lacking in the literature, and there is a need to fil...

A large global workforce of informal entrepreneurs has historically dominated circular economy practices in the Global South, collecting many millions of tonnes of waste for recycling, and supplementing insufficiencies in struggling municipal waste management systems. Ongoing negotiations for a ‘Legally Binding Instrument on Plastic Pollution’ impl...

Ongoing negotiations for a ‘Legally Binding Instrument on Plastic Pollution’ recognise the substantial contribution made by the informal recycling sector (IRS - waste pickers) to plastic pollution mitigation as part of just transition. Negotiating parties will require baseline evidence of the sector’s activities to inform the development of local a...

Despite electricity generated from landfill gas (LFG) is widely studied, the effect over time of dynamic changes in the waste composition caused by diversions of MSW was still scarce. In this sense, this paper evaluates the impact of policy targets for diversion of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) on energy production from LFG recovery. A System Dynamic...

Plastics have become one of the most ubiquitous materials for countless applications across different sectors and their consumption is increasing around 8% per year globally. The life-cycle stages of plastics production, use, and end-of-life are associated with significant environmental and human health impacts from climate change to presence of to...

Municipal solid waste (MSW) management that seeks to recover wasted resources and return them to the system as secondary commodities (hence, it promotes circularity in resource recovery systems) is a process instigated by recycling value chains. Recycling value chains are termed as the chain of processes (i.e., value chain activities and performanc...

Há uma estimativa de que dois terços da população mundial viverão em cidades em 2050. Megacidades são as que ultrapassam populações de 10 milhões de habitantes e são caracterizadas por grandes desafios para serem sustentáveis, incluindo densidade populacional, segurança energética e alimentar, destinação de resíduos sólidos, entre outros. Em busca...

This article aims to identify and comprehend the challenges and strengths behind public policies on integrating waste pickers (WPs) within waste management systems in Colombia and Brazil. In both, WPs started to come together and found organisations and external agents such as NGOs began to support organised groups of WPs. After 10 years of judicia...

Waste management and recycling need to be more inclusive, integrating informal agents such as Waste Pickers. In many Global South countries, Waste Pickers’ Organisations (WPOs) have their work recognised at country levels. Despite Brazilian policies’ achievements, WPOs have faced many challenges, one being their financial sustainability. This paper...

O trabalho consiste em uma análise do custo da coleta seletiva com inclusão dos catadores de materiais recicláveis no município de Cachoeira de Minas (MG) através da ferramenta SoCo (Solidary Selective Collection and Inclusive Recycling Analysis Tool). Mediante a essa avaliação verificou-se que a ferramenta torna possível certificar se a associação...

Catadores are people who collect and sell materials that can be recycled. This activity has been done informally in many countries for years. Recently, a recognition process has begun for the informal recycling sector, with public and private initiatives. In Brazil, catadores started out associating with each other in co-operatives in the 1980s. In...

The process in which the integration of waste pickers in Brazil happened and the case of Sorocaba city.

Catadores são pessoas que coletam e comercializam resíduos passíveis de serem reciclados, como forma de sobrevivência. Essa atividade tem sido realizada informalmente em muitos países por muitos anos. Recentemente, se iniciou um processo de reconhecimento e organização desse setor, em parceria com o poder público e setor privado. No Brasil, os cata...