1,653 research outputs found
Methods and tools for reducing food waste in the household environment
No full textIl “Food Waste” nell’Unione Europea ammonta a circa 89 milioni di tonnellate per anno di cui il 42% proviene dall’ambiente domestico. È stato, inoltre, stimato che il 60% di quest’ultimo è evitabile sensibilizzando il consumatore finale e incentivandolo all’adozione di migliori abitudini alimentari che consentono, tra l‘altro, di ridurre i problemi di salute e obesità.
A tal proposito, numerosi sforzi sono stati dedicati dal mondo scientifico e industriale al riuso degli scarti delle industrie alimentari, allo sviluppo di nuovi sistemi per la gestione dei rifiuti e al lancio di campagne di sensibilizzazione dei cittadini. Tuttavia, metodi e strumenti in grado di aiutare il consumatore finale a previvere lo spreco sono ancora carenti.
In questo contesto, l’obiettivo della ricerca, svolta in collaborazione con la Indesit Company, è stato quello di studiare e sviluppare un sistema integrato in grado di ridurre lo spreco di cibo nell’ambiente domestico e migliorare lo stile di vita dell’utente finale, in termini di salute e benessere.
In particolare, è stata sviluppata un’applicazione web e una serie di servizi correlati in grado di guidare il consumatore finale nella corretta conservazione degli alimenti, supportarlo nella gestione degli acquisti e suggerire le ricette che necessitano di ingredienti in scadenza e meglio soddisfano i suoi requisiti nutrizionali. Questo è stato possibile grazie alla parallela realizzazione di un frigorifero connesso dotato di un lettore NFC in grado di leggere le informazioni contenute in specifici “tag” da applicare sulla confezione dei prodotti. Ciò consente di avere a disposizione un inventario aggiornato degli alimenti presenti in casa e tracciarne le scadenze.
Le potenzialità del sistema proposto sono state valutate analizzandone l’usabilità e i benefici in termini di impatto ambientale ed economico. Infine, l’effettiva integrazione del sistema in un ecosistema più ampio ha permesso di valutarne anche l’interoperabilità.The total quantity of food waste in the European Union has been estimated at around 89 million tonnes per year of which about 42% is thrown out by households. Furthermore, it has been esteemed that the 60% of the latter would be avoidable by increasing users’ awareness and encouraging them to adopt better eating habits, which also allow reducing the health and obesity problems.
For this reason, several attempts have been dedicated by the scientific and industrial world to the reuse of food industries wastes, the development of systems for a more efficient waste management and the launch of campaigns to attract interest of citizens on this issue. However, methods and tools able to support consumers to prevent the waste are still lacking.
In this context, the goal of the present research work, carried out in collaboration with the Indesit Company, consists in the study and development of an integrate system able to reduce the household food waste and improve the end-users lifestyle in terms of health and wellbeing.
In particular, a web application and a set of related services have been developed to guide the user in the proper storage of food, support him/her in the purchase planning and suggest the recipes that better satisfy his/her energy and nutritional requirements and need ingredients close to expire.
Such result was possible thanks to the development of a smart fridge equipped with a NFC reader that allows reading specific NFC tags that the user can configure according to the food information. This allows having an updated stocks inventory and tracking the products expirations.
The potentialities of the system has been evaluated from the usability, environmental and economic point of view. Finally, the system integration in a wider smart ecosystem allowed also evaluating its interoperability
Driving Process Innovation: A Structured Method for Improving Efficiency in SMEs
No full textAbstractThis paper proposes a method to drive process innovation toward the increase in efficiency of a production plant.The work defines a structured method, supported by a classification tool, to correctly organize whole plant information with a mayor focus on energy consumptions. The method was tested in a medium enterprise with the target to increase the efficiency of the entire production plant. The method is the basis for a web application tool. A correct data management permits to plan the best practices to improve processes and systems involved in terms of environmental and economic impacts, meaning a process sustainable innovation
A comparison of different waste collection methods: Environmental impacts and occupational risks
No full textMunicipal waste management, especially in developed countries, has a significant impact on the environment and humans that need to be quantified and mitigated. This study aims to investigate and compare the environmental impact and occupational risks of the following three municipal waste collection methods in Italy: street bins, door-to-door collection, and a smart bins system. Six waste categories (paper, plastics, glass, metal, organic materials, and residual waste) are analysed. Environmental performances are calculated by the life cycle assessment (LCA) and material and flow analysis (MFA) methodologies. The ergonomic analysis is based on direct observation of municipal waste collectors and the application of standard assessment methods as RULA, NIOSH, and Snook Ciriello. Results: show that the smart bins collection method is environmentally more effective in all the impact categories considered, thanks to the better quality of collected waste. The residual waste flow directed to landfills has a lower value in the case of smart bins (36.63%) in comparison with door-to-door (52.90%) and street bins (89.56%). The use of smart bins allows higher environmental benefits, passing for the Climate Change impact category from −2.80E+01 kg of CO2eq. of the door-to-door system and −2.74E+01 kg of CO2eq. of street bins to −7.13E+01 kg of CO2eq. of smart bins. Regarding the transport phase, the smart bins system determines a reduction of the impact of about 60% if compared with the door-to-door system for all the impact categories considered. On the other hand, acceptable occupational risks result in street and smart waste collection methods, while poor ergonomics conditions are observed during the door-to-door collection. Containers lifting and emptying are the most critical tasks
Optimization of Energy Efficiency of a Production Site: A Method to Support Data Acquisition for Effective Action Plans
No full textTraceability as a means to investigate supply chain sustainability: The real case of a leather shoe supply chain
No full textAn Augmented Reality System for Operator Training in the Footwear Sector
No full textThis study presents an augmented reality-based system for the training of assembly line operators in the context of the high-end footwear industry. The proposed multi-layer software architecture, in combination with the AR viewer (Microsoft HoloLensTM), guides operators of the shoe assembly/finishing line during the offline training activities. An evaluation protocol has been defined and preliminary experimentation of the system have been conducted in an Italian company that produces classic and luxury leather shoes
Lifecycle tools as a support for the eco-design innovation of domestic appliances
No full textThe goal of sustainable development through the product innovation is a global challenge that Academia and Industries are addressing. The regulatory pressure and the growing demand of eco-friendly products by consumers are two of its main drivers, especially in the household appliances sector. For this aim, manufactures need to change the design approach in order to extend the boundaries of the benchmark analysis of possible innovations: (i) multi-objective criteria should be taken into account such as the environmental issues, costs, technical performances, etc., and (ii) a life cycle thinking has to be adopted to consider long terms benefits or impacts. However, the literature highlights the lack of structured methods able to support the R&D activity according to these perspectives. For this aim, the present paper provides a systematic approach, which exploits lifecycle and innovation tools to effectively support designers in the development of sustainable solutions in a long term perspective. The proposed approach has been applied in real case study to increase the energy efficiency of a domestic refrigerator. In particular, the insulation module has been redesigned by comparing several alternatives in terms of environmental performances and costs over the product lifespan to effectively evaluate the consistency of the developed eco-innovations
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