Since the last century, plastics have increasingly gained a significant share of the packaging sector due to their versatility, affordability, and durability. In recent decades, environmental concerns have arisen regarding plastic pollution, which is an inevitable consequence of the use of fossil-based resources, whose extraction contributes to CO₂ emissions, as well as of polymer degradation into microplastics, affecting both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. In the food packaging sector, c...
One of the key questions in Reinforcement Learning is the compromise between exploration and exploitation. Some popular techniques to encourage exploration are the use of random noise and adding an entropy objective to the reward function. These approaches have proven useful, but suboptimal and/or costly. One key observation is that acting randomnly is not the same as having random experiences, which has lead to the Maximum Diffusion approach, with promising results. In this work, we propose ...
Smartphones are associated with significant environmental impacts, largely driven by frequent replacement and short effective lifetimes. Extending device use is therefore often proposed as a key strategy to reduce these impacts. This thesis assesses how alternative smartphone lifetime-extension strategies influence climate-change impacts in the German context. A cohort-based lifetime model is developed to represent heterogeneous device ageing, failure, repair, and replacement behaviour, and i...
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) has emerged as one of the fastest-growing and most complex waste streams worldwide, driven by rapid technological innovation, shorter product lifespans, and increasing consumer demand. The improper handling and informal recycling of WEEE lead to significant environmental contamination and health risks due to hazardous components such as lead, mercury, and brominated flame retardants, while also resulting in the loss of valuable secondary raw ma...
The transition towards a circular economy is reshaping multiple industrial sectors, including packaging. Within the European Union, increasing regulatory pressure is accelerating the need to reduce single-use plastic and ensure packaging recyclability. In this study, the main attention is given to flexible fibre-based composites, due to their growing relevance in sustainable packaging. Nevertheless, rigid fibre-based composites were also evaluated due to their recyclability challenges.
The ob...
The increasing generation of textile waste, driven by the rise of fast fashion, poses significant environmental challenges across the textile life cycle, from raw material extraction and manufacturing processes to end-of-life disposal, with the majority of waste ultimately ending up in landfill. Current textile recycling practices are predominantly focused on post-industrial waste streams, which are relatively homogeneous and easier to process, while post-consumer textiles, representing signi...
This study evaluates the environmental performance of injection mold manufacturing processes using quantitative environmental indicators. The research was conducted as a case study at FMB S.r.l., an Italian company specialized in the design and production of high-precision plastic injection molds. While numerous studies address the environmental impacts of plastic products, the environmental burden associated with mold manufacturing itself remains relatively underexplored. The methodological ...
Il settore delle costruzioni ha un ruolo centrale nello sviluppo, ma genera forti impatti ambientali, soprattutto nel comparto residenziale.
Gli edifici sono responsabili di una quota rilevante dei consumi energetici, delle emissioni di gas serra e dell’uso di risorse materiali in Europa.
Le politiche di decarbonizzazione hanno ridotto gli impatti operativi, spostando l’attenzione sulla fase di costruzione, dunque la sfida attuale è ridurre gli impatti lungo l’intero ciclo di vita mantenendo ...
Il seguente lavoro si propone di prendere d’esempio un’opera della Venezia rinascimentale dipinta dalla mano del pittore coneglianese Giambattista Cima (1459 o 1460-1517), ovvero, l’”Incoronazione della Vergine” conservata presso la Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo per analizzare la trasmissione di schemi figurativi ornamentali propri dell’arte classica nel XV e XVI secolo, focalizzandosi, inoltre, prima sulla storia critica ed attributiva dell’opera, poi sulla nascita e lo sviluppo dell’i...
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large class of synthetic chemicals widely used in industrial and consumer applications due to their chemical stability and surfactant properties. This same stability, however, makes PFAS highly persistent in the environment, leading to widespread contamination of water resources and near-universal human exposure. Growing epidemiological evidence has linked exposure to several legacy PFAS, particularly perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluoro...
