Linking energy scenarios and waste storylines for prospective environmental assessment of waste management systems.

Multiple international and supranational organizations call upon changes in current waste management practices to play a key role in developing more sustainable economies. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a popular method used to assess the sustainability of future waste management options. The uncertainties about future energy systems and waste compositions, however, may lead to ambiguous LCA results.

Solid waste management of small island developing states-the case of the Seychelles: a systemic and collaborative study of Swiss and Seychellois students to support policy.

Solid waste management (SWM) is a significant challenge for the Seychelles. Waste generation, fueled by economic development and tourism, increases steadily, while landfilling continues to be the main disposal path, thus exacerbating the island nation's specific weaknesses. Due to the small scale of the Seychelles economy, there is little capital available to stimulate innovations in SWM and generate the knowledge for setting priorities and guiding SWM action.

Discourse coalitions in Swiss waste management: gridlock or winds of change?

As a complex socio-technical system, waste management is crucially important for the sustainable management of material and energy flows. Transition to better performing waste management systems requires not only determining what needs to be changed but also finding out how this change can be realized. Without understanding the political context, insights from decision support tools such as life cycle assessment (LCA) are likely to be lost in translation to decision and policy making.

Assessing the Reliability of Material Flow Analysis Results: The Cases of Rhenium, Gallium, and Germanium in the United States Economy.

Decision-makers traditionally expect "hard facts" from scientific inquiry, an expectation that the results of material flow analyses (MFAs) can hardly meet. MFA limitations are attributable to incompleteness of flowcharts, limited data quality, and model assumptions. Moreover, MFA results are, for the most part, based less on empirical observation but rather on social knowledge construction processes.

Eco-efficiency assessment of options for metal recovery from incineration residues: a conceptual framework.

Residues from municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration in Switzerland have been a hot topic in recent years, both in the research and practice communities. Regarded by many as an economically and environmentally sound solution to this issue, technological retrofitting of existing grate incinerators has the dual purpose of enhancing the metal recovery of bottom and fly ashes and improving the inertization of residues to be landfilled. How does context influence the economic and environmental performance of this particular technological option? Under which conditions would this technological option be implemented nationwide in the future? What are stakeholders' views on sustainable transitions of MSW incineration? We propose a three-stage methodological procedure to address these questions.

Science with society in the anthropocene.

Interdisciplinary scientific knowledge is necessary but not sufficient when it comes to addressing sustainable transformations, as science increasingly has to deal with normative and value-related issues. A systems perspective on coupled human-environmental systems (HES) helps to address the inherent complexities. Additionally, a thorough interaction between science and society (i.