Environmental impacts characterization of packaging waste generated by urban food delivery services. A big-data analysis in Jing-Jin-Ji region (China)

Disposable Plastic Waste and Associated Antioxidants and Plasticizers Generated by Online Food Delivery Services in China: National Mass Inventories and Environmental Release

China's online food delivery (OFD) services consume enormous amounts of disposable plastics. Here, we investigated and modeled the national mass inventories and environmental release of plastics and chemical additives in the plastic. The extra-tree regression identified six key descriptors in determining OFD sales in Chinese cities. Approximately 847 kt of OFD plastic waste was generated in 2021 (per capita 1.10 kg/yr in the megacities and 0.39 kg/yr in other cities). Various additives were extensively detected, with geomean concentrations of 140.96, 4.76, and 0.25 μg/g for ∑8antioxidants, ∑21phthalates, and bisphenol A (BPA), respectively. The estimated mass inventory of these additives in the OFD plastics was 164.7 t, of which 51.1 t was released into the atmosphere via incineration plants and 51.0 t was landfilled. The incineration also released 8.07 t of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and 39.1 kt of particulate matter into the atmosphere. Takeout food may increase the dietary intake of phthalates and BPA by 30% to 50% and raise concerns about considerable exposure to antioxidant transformation products. This study provides profound environmental implications for plastic waste in the Chinese OFD industry. We call for a sustainable circular economy action plan for waste disposal, but mitigating the hazardous substance content and their emissions is urgent.

A review on takeaway packaging waste: Types, ecological impact, and disposal route

Rapid economic growth and urbanization have led to significant changes in the world's consumption patterns. Accelerated urbanization, the spread of the mobile Internet, and the increasing pace of work globally have all contributed to the demand for the food takeaway industry. The rapid development of the takeaway industry inevitably brings convenience to life, and with it comes great environmental pressure from waste packaging materials. While maintaining the convenience of people's lives, further reducing the environmental pollution caused by takeaway packaging materials and promoting the recycling and reuse of takeaway packaging waste need to attract the attention and concern of the whole society. This review systematically and comprehensively introduces common takeaway food types and commonly used packaging materials, analyzes the impacts of discarded takeaway packaging materials on human health and the ecological environment, summarizes the formulation and implementation of relevant policies and regulations, proposes treatment methods and resourceful reuse pathways for discarded takeaway packaging, and also provides an outlook on the development of green takeaway packaging. Currently, only 20% of waste packaging materials are recycled worldwide, and there is still a need to develop more green takeaway packaging materials and continuously improve relevant policies and regulations to promote the sustainable development of the takeaway industry. The review is conducive to further optimizing the takeaway packaging management system, alleviating the environmental pollution problem, and providing feasible solutions and technical guidance for further optimizing takeaway food packaging materials and comprehensive utilization of resources.

Sustainable services planning. Methods supporting the design of cultural exhibitions

The sustainable design of product systems has been addressed in numerous research works. However, studies regarding the sustainability of services are fewer and they are focused mostly on the study of environmental aspects during the service provision stage. Regarding cultural services, the application of sustainability principles in their design process is increasingly required due to reasons such as environmental awareness, social responsibility, visitors' preferences and innovation strategies. Although up to date a limited number of initiatives have been promoted. The objectives of this work are the description of a specific sustainable design method based on the development of systematic tasks and supported on three complementary approaches, and the application of this method to the design of two different types of cultural exhibitions. The design of an itinerary exhibition, which is developed in a sheltered indoor space, and an exhibition, which is developed in the streets of a big city, are, respectively, carried out. The sustainability performance of different design alternatives are valued in each case by analyzing the incidence of those systems, activities, and stakeholders involved along the entire service development and using not only environmental but also socio-economic indicators. Thus, this research work aims at providing the appropriate methodological support to designers of cultural services and managers of cultural institutions, to carry out more sustainable projects.

The impact of perceived risk of online takeout packaging and the moderating role of educational level

With the rapid development of e-commerce and the impact of COVID-19, online takeout has become the first choice of more and more consumers. Previous research has indicated that food packaging is of great significance to marketing performance, yet very little is known about the mechanisms through which food packaging pollution risk affects online takeout consumption. This study proposes an expanded model of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) by incorporating the Concept of Perceived Risk (CPR) to analyze the mechanism of consumers' packaging pollution risk perception (PPRP) on their purchasing intention toward online takeout. Online survey was performed to collect data from 336 valid respondents in China, which was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The research findings verify the effectiveness of the TPB in the context of Chinese online takeout. Notably, the PPRP of online takeout was found to have a significant negative impact on consumers' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (PBC). It was also confirmed that consumers' attitudes, subjective norms, and PBC regarding online takeout partially mediate the negative relationship between PPRP and purchase intention. In addition, the findings corroborate the granular nuances among three groups concerning consumers' education level. The results do not only provide suggestions to the online takeout industry but also contribute theoretical value and practical significance for the improvement of sustainable food consumption.

Sustainable successes in third-party food delivery operations in the digital platform era

In the digital era, third-party food delivery operations are very popular all around the world. However, to achieve a sustainable operation for food delivery businesses is a challenging issue. Motivated by the fact that there is a lack of consolidated view towards the topic in the literature, we conduct a systematic literature review to identify how to achieve a sustainable operation for third-party food delivery and highlight the recent advances in this important area with the discussion of real-world practices. In this study, first, we review the relevant literature and apply the triple bottom line (TBL) framework to classify prior studies into economic sustainability, social sustainability, environmental sustainability, and multi-dimensional sustainability. We then identify three major research gaps, including inadequate investigation on the restaurant's preferences and decisions, superficial understanding on the environmental performance, and limited examination on the multi-dimensional sustainability in the third-party food delivery operations. Finally, based on the reviewed literature and observed industrial practices, we propose five future areas that deserve an in-depth further investigation. They are namely applications of digital technologies, behaviors and decisions of the restaurants, risk management, TBL, and post-coronavirus pandemic.

Leaching behavior and evaluation of zebrafish embryo toxicity of microplastics and phthalates in take-away plastic containers

Take-away containers are the common food contact materials (FCMs) that are widely used in daily life. However, little is known regarding the effects of different food simulants on the pollution characteristics of microplastics derived from food containers, as well as the toxic effects of the chemical substances that are leached from them. Extracts were obtained by adding organic solvents into plastic containers (polypropylene, PP; polystyrene, PS) to simulate aqueous, alcoholic, and fatty environments. The extracted substances and their toxic effects were then assessed by counting and characterizing the resulting microplastics and performing bio-acute toxicity assays. The results demonstrated that the highest abundance of microplastics occurred in PS containers in fatty environments, which was likely due to the rough surface of the PS. In contrast, organic solvents seemed more conducive to the migration of substances. Furthermore, the PP and PS extracts in an alcohol and fatty environment have significant impacts on zebrafish embryo development, including arrhythmia, pericardial cysts, and spinal curvature.

Online on-demand delivery services of food and alcohol: A scoping review of public health impacts

The increase in availability of online on-demand food and alcohol delivery services has changed the way unhealthy commodities are accessed and understood. We conducted a systematic scoping review of academic and grey literature to map the current knowledge of public health and regulatory/policy outcomes arising from on-demand food and alcohol delivery (defined as delivery within 2 h). We systematically searched three electronic databases and completed supplementary forward citation searches and Google Scholar searches. In total, we screened 761 records (de-duplicated) and synthesised findings from 40 studies by commodity types (on-demand food or alcohol) and outcome focus (outlet, consumer, environmental, labour). Outlet-focused outcomes were most common (n = 16 studies), followed by consumer (n = 11), environmental (n = 7), and labour-focused (n = 6) outcomes. Despite geographical and methodological diversity of studies, results indicate that on-demand delivery services market unhealthy and discretionary foods, with disadvantaged communities having reduced access to healthy commodities. Services that deliver alcohol on-demand can also subvert current alcohol access restrictions, particularly through poor age verification processes. Underpinning these public health impacts is the multi-layered nature of on-demand services and context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which creates ongoing complications as to how populations access food and alcohol. Changing access to unhealthy commodities is an emerging issue in public health. Our scoping review considers priority areas for future research to better inform policy decisions. Current regulation of food and alcohol may not appropriately cover emerging on-demand technologies, necessitating a review of policy.

Microplastics in Widely Used Polypropylene-Made Food Containers

As a potential threat to human health, ingestion of microplastics (MPs) has become of concern. Limited studies have carefully characterized the occurrence of MPs in polypropylene-made takeout food containers (TOFCs), which have been widely used in China. In this study, TOFC samples (n = 210) were collected from seven Chinese cities (Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Xining, Chengdu, Qingdao, and Dalian) and analyzed for MPs. All the TOFC samples contained MPs, with an abundance of 3−43 items/TOFC. The TOFCs from Chengdu (25 items/TOFC) contained the highest mean abundance of MPs, which is significantly (p < 0.01) higher than that from Shanghai (8.7 items/TOFC). Fiber accounted for 66−87% of the total for the shape of the MPs in the TOFCs from the different Chinese cities. Most of the MPs in the TOFCs from the different cities had a size of 201−500 μm and accounted for a mean 34−42% of the total MPs in the TOFCs. The major color type of the MPs in the TOFCs was transparent, accounting for a mean 39 (Qingdao)−73% (Hangzhou) of the total MPs. Polymer compositions of the MPs in the TOFCs were consistently dominated by polypropylene, which represented a mean 56−73% of the total MPs. The estimated daily intake of MPs for the general Chinese population through using TOFCs was in the range of 0.042−0.14 items/kg bw/day. To our knowledge, this is the most comprehensive study investigating the occurrence of MPs in TOFCs from China, which contributes to a better understanding of the sources of human oral exposure to MPs.

Comprehensive Evaluation of Government Economic Management Performance Based on Multidimensional Data Mining in Fuzzy Comprehensive Environment

Economic, political, social, and military activities all fall under the umbrella of government duties. The modification and reinterpretation of economic functions are the primary focus of the innovation in government administration style under the wave of economic globalisation. The effectiveness of the government's economic administration determines the general level of public administration at the federal level. An essential issue of national public administration that has a significant impact on the political growth of many nations is the performance evaluation of government economic administration. The people are the subject of government economic administration performance evaluation, and the people adjudicate the outcomes. An essential method of assessing the productivity of various departments is through performance review. The nation is currently in the process of switching from its long-standing planned economic system to a market economic system. The internal and external environments of governmental organisations are continually changing in addition to the strong trend of economic globalisation. Determining and advancing the national government's economic administration model is so crucial. The article offers a multidimensional data mining-based optimum design scheme for the thorough assessment of government economic administration performance. The fuzzy comprehensive evaluation rule is an effective method for quantifying the qualitative indicators when the quantitative indicators in the evaluation index system are difficult to measure. It is relatively simple, reasonable, and simple to operate in practise, which is conducive to the thorough and scientific performance evaluation of the government economic administration's science and technology administration functions. Following an assessment of the system's performance using association rule data mining technologies, a simulation test analysis is completed. The accuracy of the proposed arithmetic, which is 8.26% higher than the conventional arithmetic, is demonstrated by simulation results. The development of an evaluation model that incorporates both subjective and objective criteria, as well as the thorough assessment of the effectiveness of government economic administration based on data mining technologies, has excellent application prospects and practical value.

Food waste and its embedded resources loss: A provincial level analysis of China

Food waste is of great concern because it causes severe environmental pollution during disposal and contains many resources that should be well managed. Food waste quantification could clarify the resource value of wasted food and thus help to improve resource utilization efficiency, reduce water eutrophication potential, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By considering household food waste, out-of-home food waste, and food delivery waste in rural and urban regions, this paper quantifies the nitrogen, phosphorus, water, and carbon footprint embedded in China's food waste at the provincial level. The results indicate that food waste in China was 56.75 Mt. in 2018. Those wasted food cause 0.54 Mt. loss of phosphorus (5.12% of the phosphorus fertilizer consumption), 3.58 Mt. loss of nitrogen (10.43% of the nitrogen fertilizer consumption), and 120.25 billion tons loss of water (3.06 times of the storage capacity of the Three Gorges Reservoir). If ignoring the greenhouse gas emissions caused by land-use change, the carbon footprint caused by wasted food is 168.07 Mt. CO₂eq, accounting for 1.44% of China's total GHG emission. Principal component analysis indicates that the per capita disposable income, urbanization rate, and personal consumption expenditure are critical factors for food waste volume variation in different provinces. Considering China's significant role in the global resource cycling, improving nutrient/resource utilization efficiency along the food supply chain, minimizing food waste volume, and developing economic-effective processes for food waste reuse and recycling are recommended to close the imbalanced resource cycle during the current food waste management.

Big Data-Driven Urban Management: Potential for Urban Sustainability

With the world’s rapidly growing urbanization, urban sustainability is now expected for urban life. Due to this rapid growth, meeting the emerging challenges for urban management and sustainability worldwide is challenging. Big data-driven technologies can be an excellent solution to address these upcoming challenges. Therefore, this study explores the potential of big data technologies for ensuring sustainability in urban management. The study conducted a systematic literature review guided by PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis) on publications over the last 21 years. The study argues that urban management is an integrated function of public and private agencies to address the significant challenges of urban life and to develop the city as more competitive, habitable, and sustainable. Urban management can utilize big data analytics (BDA) for digital instrumentation, data-informed policy decisions, governance, real-time management, and evidence-based decisions. Urban sustainability can ensure the smooth operation of urban affairs through strategic planning under three major dimensions: social, economic, and environmental. Big data technologies can ensure smart transport, traffic, waste management, energy, environment, infrastructure, safety, healthcare, planning, and citizen participation in regular urban affairs to provide a better urban life. This study develops several indicators that will be helpful for concerned stakeholders in policy, planning, designing, and implementing sustainable urban development.

The Value of China's Legislation on Plastic Pollution Prevention in 2020

It has taken 12 years since 2008, but China is finally strengthening plastic pollution prevention and control through legislation. In an effort to regulate and control plastic products, China's government amended and released a series of laws and regulations in 2020, possibly heralding the end of China's plastic pollution. China's plastic pollution legislation, while late, is a viable and right response to the severe environmental and ecology problem. Legislative progress in plastic pollution prevention has extended beyond China government's administrative capability but has also been an important step in the protection of the environment in the world.

The Value of China's Legislation on Plastic Pollution Prevention in 2020

It has taken 12 years since 2008, but China is finally strengthening plastic pollution prevention and control through legislation. In an effort to regulate and control plastic products, China's government amended and released a series of laws and regulations in 2020, possibly heralding the end of China's plastic pollution. China's plastic pollution legislation, while late, is a viable and right response to the severe environmental and ecology problem. Legislative progress in plastic pollution prevention has extended beyond China government's administrative capability but has also been an important step in the protection of the environment in the world.

Mapping the environmental impacts and policy effectiveness of takeaway food industry in China

The takeaway food industry, involving more than 0.4 billion consumers in China, has brought mass of packaging waste and salient environmental burden. Here we mapped the distribution of takeaway food industry across China including the industry scale, diet structure and order time based on the analysis of more than 35 million takeaway food orders. The real use situation of various packaging materials in the takeaway food industry market has been clarified. The life cycle assessment of "a piece of takeaway food delivery order" has been carried out in different regions. Results show that in addition to plastic waste generation, takeaway food industry causes more types of environmental impacts. In terms of the national resource consumption, greenhouse gases emission, water pollution and health damage risk, the top 5 ranked provinces in each accounted for 44%, 48%, 43% and 49%, respectively. Under the latest Chinese plastic pollution control policy, the industry needs to reduce 1.12 million tons of non-degradable plastic packaging by the end of 2025, and 65% of the pressure is clustered in the metropolis and provincial capitals. However, without targeted and regionally differentiated plastic pollution control policies, the environmental impact control of takeaway food industry is still ineffective. It is urgent to explore the control measures applicable to different regions. Overall, packaging reduction is more effective than material substitution.

Potential climate benefits of reusable packaging in food delivery services. A Chinese case study

In China, the food delivery packaging waste is increasing due to the rapid growth of the sector and the use of single-use packaging to transport the meals. In addition, the recycling rates of current municipal waste management are low. In this regard, this study aims at estimating the climate change impact of current food delivery packaging and its waste treatment, by performing a Life Cycle Assessment with a cradle-to-grave approach. In addition, this article explores the potential benefits of increasing the current recycling rates, the recycled content of the packaging as well as the use of reusable packaging. For this study, the food packaging of a typical dumpling-based meal of the popular Chinese restaurant Xijiade was selected. Based on this menu and the current Chinese consumption patterns, the food delivery packaging in China would have emitted about 13 million tons of CO₂eq. Increasing current recycling rates to 35% would reduce 16% the emissions of single-use packaging, and further decrease (60%) could be found if half of the packaging was made of recycled material. In addition, if single-use packaging was replaced by reusable PP-based packaging (food container and carrier bag), the emissions would potentially be 63% lower than the current situation. In this case, doubling the recycling rates and the recycled content of the reusable food packaging would represent an extra 6 and 17% reduction of emissions, respectively.

Environment and food safety: a novel integrative review

Environment protection and food safety are two critical issues in the world. In this review, a novel approach which integrates statistical study and subjective discussion was adopted to review recent advances on environment and food safety. Firstly, a scientometric-based statistical study was conducted based on 4904 publications collected from the Web of Science Core Collection database. It was found that the research on environment and food safety was growing steadily from 2001 to 2020. Interestingly, the statistical analysis of most-cited papers, titles, abstracts, keywords, and research areas revealed that the research on environment and food safety was diverse and multidisciplinary. In addition to the scientometric study, strategies to protect environment and ensure food safety were critically discussed, followed by a discussion on the emerging research topics, including emerging contaminates (e.g., microplastics), rapid detection of contaminants (e.g., biosensors), and environment friendly food packaging materials (e.g., biodegradable polymers). Finally, current challenges and future research directions were proposed.

Smart and Active Food Packaging: Insights in Novel Food Packaging

The demand for more healthy foods with longer shelf life has been growing. Food packaging as one of the main aspects of food industries plays a vital role in meeting this demand. Integration of nanotechnology with food packaging systems (FPSs) revealed promising promotion in foods’ shelf life by introducing novel FPSs. In this paper, common classification, functionalities, employed nanotechnologies, and the used biomaterials are discussed. According to our survey, FPSs are classified as active food packaging (AFP) and smart food packaging (SFP) systems. The functionality of both systems was manipulated by employing nanotechnologies, such as metal nanoparticles and nanoemulsions, and appropriate biomaterials like synthetic polymers and biomass-derived biomaterials. “Degradability and antibacterial” and “Indicating and scavenging” are the well-known functions for AFP and SFP, respectively. The main purpose is to make a multifunctional FPS to increase foods’ shelf life and produce environmentally friendly and smart packaging without any hazard to human life.

Environmental Issues as Drivers for Food Choice: Study from a Multinational Framework

This work intended to explore some motivations that influence people’s eating habits towards sustainability. This was an observational, cross-sectional study, carried out by questionnaire survey on a non-probabilistic sample of 10,067 participants from 13 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Romania and United States). Results indicated that people prefer fresh local foods from the season, being important because it allows transportation and storage to be reduced, which in many cases implies refrigeration systems and consequent energy expenditure. Although people avoid food waste at home, the awareness for the waste at restaurants still needs to be improved. Consumers seem to prefer foods that have been produced and packed in sustainable ways but still give importance to the package—understandable for food products. The results also indicated significant differences in the food choice motivations between groups for all sociodemographic variables tested (age, sex, marital status, education, professional area, living environment and country), but the association was high only for variable country. Additionally, a tree classification analysis allowed to identify the relative importance of the influential variables on the sustainable food choices, with country being the most important, followed by age and sex. Additionally, discriminant function analysis allowed establishing a model for the relation between country and six variables accounting for preservation of biodiversity, respect for life, save natural resources, save energy, reduce industrial pollution and minimal packaging. Although with some limitations, this study brings valuable insight into some aspects linked with sustainable food choices on a number of countries and how people shape their food choices according to some sustainability issues.