M.Tech. (Architectural Technology) / The City of Johannesburg has no formal recycling strategy and waste is simply dumped as collected in designated landfill sites. Yet these landfill sites, reportedly, will be good for no more than another eight years. Throughout the city there is an informal network of waste collectors commonly known as trolley pushers who, together with the private buy-back and recycle centres, form the only real system of recycling in Johannesburg. There is no infrastructure for the trolley pushers, men and women who perform a vital function. There are no dedicated spaces and very little tolerance from the residents of Johannesburg. The trolley pushers sleep amongst their collection of waste, or travel far to start each day in the very early hours of the morning. They roll their improvised trolleys full of goods in the street among the traffic of commuters, hindering and being hindered. They store their messy waste, when they can in unsafe and public spaces, such as under bridges and on the side of some roads. Storage is such a problem for trolley pushers that often they’re forced to sell their goods as soon as they collect them, when the fluctuating prices may be too low. They are always essentially at the mercy of the privately-owned buyback centres. Their days are long and they have no ablution facilities, no designated space to catch their breath, eat, obtain drinking water, network or socialise. This project is about changing that by facilitating the informal recycling sector, providing the convenient infrastructure without formalising the process. The term ‘convenient’ in this context encompasses spaces close to the buy-back centre, with low tech, low maintenance, mixed-use facilities. These facilities include secure sorting and storage spaces, sleeping, ablution and social spaces. The essence of this project is to encourage, empower and improve work and income potential in the informal waste recycling sector through simple, appropriate architectural interventions that are essentially selfmaintaining.

Modern deep learning models require large amounts of data to train, and the acquisition of data can be challenging. Synthetic data provides an alternative to manually collecting real data, alleviating problems associated with real data acquisition. For recycling processes, classifying metal scrap piles containing hazardous objects is important, where hazardous objects can be damaging and costly if handled incorrectly. Automatically detecting hazardous objects in metal scrap piles using image classification models requires large amounts of data, and metal scrap piles contain large variations in objects, textures, and lighting. Furthermore, data acquisition can be challenging in the recycling domain, where positive objects can be scarce and manual acquisition setup can be challenging. In this thesis, synthetic images of metal scrap piles in a recycling process are created, intended for training image classification models to detect metal scrap piles containing fire extinguishers or hydraulic cylinders. Synthetic images are created with physically based rendering and domain randomization, rendered with either rasterization or ray tracing engines. Ablation studies are conducted to investigate the effect of using domain randomization. The performance of models trained on purely synthetic datasets is compared to models trained on datasets containing only real images. Furthermore, photorealistic rendering with ray tracing rendering is evaluated by comparing F1 scores between models trained on data sets created with rasterization or ray tracing. The F1 scores show that models trained on purely synthetic data outperform those trained solely on real data when classifying images containing fire extinguishers or hydraulic cylinders. Ablation studies show that domain randomization of textures is beneficial both for the classification of fire extinguishers and for the classification of hydraulic cylinders in metal scrap piles. High dynamic range image lighting randomization does not provide benefits when classifying metal scrap piles containing fire extinguishers, suggesting that other lighting randomization techniques may be more effective. The F1 scores show that synthetically created images using rasterization perform better when classifying metal scrap piles containing fire extinguishers. However, when classifying metal scrap piles containing hydraulic cylinders, images created with ray tracing achieve higher F1 scores. This thesis highlights the potential of synthetic data as an alternative to manually acquiring real data, particularly in domains where data collection is challenging and time-consuming. The results show the effectiveness of domain randomization and physically based rendering techniques in creating realistic and diverse synthetic datasets.

90年代歐美國家，對於人口增加、土地面積驟減、過量電子產品等所帶來的環境問題日益重視。歐洲最早發起「延伸生產者責任制」，透過制訂法律與政策提升資源再生利用的效率。並且陸續頒佈WEEE廢電機電子指令、RoHS有害物質限用指令、REACH化學品限制、ELV廢車輛指令等，透過污染控制、回收利用、減廢、污染預防、清潔生產等步驟，朝零污染方向進行，顯示資源再生的重要性。 資源再生產業在台灣為新興產業，規模以中小企業形式居多，雖然經營回收事業容易，但要經營技術層次較高的再生事業則需獲得政府許可證使得成為再生機構。近年來資源再生廠商利用廢棄物資源再生的技術，提煉出黃金、白銀、鉑等貴金屬，隨著全球原物料價格高漲，其所生產的二次原材料行情提升整體產值，預估到2010年總產值為580億台幣。 智慧資本目前普遍被認為是企業能形成競爭優勢的無形資產總和，即企業能用來作為開創財富的知識、資訊、智慧財產、經驗等。找出適合企業的智慧資本項目，讓企業投入在重要項目而獲取價值成為企業的重要課題。本文主要研究資源再生產業智慧資本經營方式，探討一般經營策略與智慧財產管理，對智慧資本運用與累積的影響。總結文獻探討與個案訪談分析的結果，根據研究問題，主要研究發現如下： 一、 資源再生產業為一特許經營行業，其經營需獲得政府所頒發之許可同意，同時易受上游產業廢棄物種類以及全球環保再生法規的影響。 二、 智慧財產需要透過企業策略與功能性活動執行才能提升成為智慧資本。 三、 策略目標不同將會影響智慧資本各構面投入的重要性判斷。 四、 智慧資本經營必須搭配策略與智慧財產管理制度才能達到創造、保護、管理、運用之功效。 五、 資源再生產業的智慧資本經營必須考量各國差異產生在地化的經營型態。 / Since the 1990s, the United States and the European Union (‘’EU’’) have become aware of the crucial environmental problems stemming from overpopulation, reducing residential areas, and growing quantities of end-of-life electronics. To protect the environment and diminish the impacts of household consumption and production, the EU took initiatives to devise environment policies and came up with the idea of Extended Producer Responsibility(‘’EPR’’), a strategy designed to promote the integration of environmental costs associated with products throughout their life cycles into the market price of the products. This concept is inspiring in the waste management, and urging industries to think over recycling process and use recyclable materials to produce products. Moreover, there are four important directives and policies in effect in the Europe, such as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (‘’WEEE’’), Restriction of Hazardous Substance Directive (‘’RoHS’’), End-of Life Vehicles Directive (‘’ELV’’), Registration, and Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (‘’REACH’’). Those legislations and standards are intended to encourage companies to voluntarily adopt environmental management systems or procedures to minimize waste and emissions and to meet the goal of zero pollution. Recycling industry in Taiwan is an emerging industry and many of them are small and medium enterprises. To operate recycling business, companies have to acquire the certificate of waste management from the Environmental Protection Administration Executive Yuan. Recently, some recycling companies make it technologically possible for kinds of wastes or unwanted products to be recycled. They have developed technologies to recover from waste to precious metals like palladium, platinum, gold, or silver. Those precious metals are valuable secondary raw materials and will contribute good revenues to recycling market. Therefore, the value of recycling market in Taiwan is estimated to rise to NT$5.8 billion by 2010. Intellectual capital is widely considered as a firm’s intangible assets and is often a major determinant of the companies’ profits. It plays a crucial role in business management and needs to be analyzed in a systematic way to find out the appropriate components. This research focuses on how the companies in recycling industry manage their intellectual capitals, and how the generic strategies and the intellectual property management influence the way of creating and accumulating the intellectual capitals. The important findings of this research are as follows (extraction): 1. Recycling industry is a kind of franchising business and needs to acquire the government’s agreement to operate. The development of this industry is highly influenced by the kinds of wastes of the upstream industries and the global environment legislation. 2. Intellectual assets will be converted into valuable intellectual capital by the implementation of business strategy and functional activities. 3. Different goals of strategy bring about different priorities for the resources input of intellectual capitals. 4. To achieve the goal of value creation, protection, management, and execution, the intellectual capital management needs to combine with strategy management and the intellectual property management. 5. The intellectual capital management in recycling industry must include the consideration of different local business environments of different countries.

Klädindustrin är idag en stor bidragande orsak till negativa miljöpåverkningar. Om avtrycket från den industrin ska minska behöver det ”fast fashion” fasas ut och ett nytt sätt att se på kläder implementeras. De enklaste sätten att minska avtrycket är att återanvända eller återvinna kläder. Renewcell återvinner textilier och bryter ner bomullen och återvinner den som nytt material - Circulose®. Det materialet skickas vidare för att bli nya kläder och på så sätt stängs loopen för textilindustrin. Av produktionen av Circulose® tillkommer ett nytt slags processavlopp som inte hunnits forskas mycket på. Paralleller till textilindustrin kan visserligen dras och där är processavloppen av heterogen karaktär. Renewcell vill se om det går att reducera det organiska materialet i avloppet till en nivå på 10 mg/l. Den här studien vill hjälpa till att fylla det forskningsgap som finns för reningsteknik inom textilåtervinningsindustrin idag. Med en ny marknad i uppstart är det viktigt att avlopp hanteras på ett bra och ansvarsfullt sätt. Syftet med studien var att undersöka experimentellt och litterärt om det går att reducera ner BOD7 i Renewcells processavloppet till 10 mg/l. En MBBR har efterforskats och jämförts med en MBR, där en MBBR ansågs vara mer resistent mot variationer och farliga ämnen. Det byggdes en MBBR i laborationsskala kopplat till processavloppet för att analysera reduktionen av BOD7 och för att göra en experimentell undersökning hur den kemiska fällningen påverkas om vattnet behandlades biologiskt först. Studien resulterade i att Renewcells karaktär på processavlopp är heterogent och är hanterbart av mikroorganismer. Dock, på grund av att ingen fullt utvecklad biofilm nåddes samt variationer i processen är det fortfarande osäkert om det fungerar att implementera en MBBR hos Renewcell. Processförändringar som ett produktionsstopp är inga problem för en fullt utvecklad MBBR att hantera. Processavloppet innehåller en stor mängd organiskt material, men saknar tillräckligt med näringsämnen. För detta projekt var 58 % reduktion av BOD7 den högsta som redovisades och det nåddes inte heller en fullt utvecklad biofilm. Att biologiskt behandla avloppet innan en kemisk fällning gav positiva resultat då reduktionen av metalljoner förbättrades. Allt som allt anses det vara möjligt att implementera en MBBR hos Renewcell om rätt förutsättningar finns och det ges en möjlighet att utveckla en biofilm fullt ut. Förhoppningsvis kan denna förstudie visa vägen för vidare studier inom området. / The clothing industry is one of the major causes for negative environmental impacts. The “fast-fashion” needs to be phased out and a more climate-friendly way of using clothes implemented. The easiest ways to do this is to reuse or recycle clothes. Renewcell recycles used textiles and dissolve the cotton into pulp and makes a new material of it - Circulose®, which is sent to become new clothes and, in that way, helps to close the loop for textile industry. With the production of Circulose® a new kind of wastewater is produced which has not yet been thoroughly researched. A parallel to the textile industry’s wastewater can be drawn, and that is of heterogeneous nature and can change quickly from day to day. It is in Renewcell’s interest to reduce the organic matter in the wastewater, more than they do today with their current chemical and mechanic wastewater treatment plant does. This study wants to help fill the research gap that exists for purification technology in the textile recycling industry today. Since it is a new field of technology, it is of importance to thoroughly invest in how to treat the wastewater responsibly. The purpose of this study was to investigate, both experimentally and literary, whether the possibility to reduce BOD7 to 10 mg/l in the wastewater treatment plant. With an investigation of MBBR and by compare it with an MBR it was concluded that a MBBRis a better fit for Renewcell since it is considered to be more resistant to variations and hazardous substances. To strengthen that conclusion a MBBR in laboratory scale was built and wastewater directly from the recycling process treated. The reduction of BOD7 and how it would come to affect the chemical precipitation was analyzed. The results of the study concluded that Renewcells wastewater is heterogenous and manageable for microorganisms. However, the due to the variations in the process such as dosing of biologically harmful substances it might not be possible for Renewcell to implement a MBBR. Process variations as a stop in production of wastewater for a shorter time period is manageable. The wastewater contains enough organic matter, but an extra addition of nutrients is needed. For this project the MBBR-process fluctuated in reduction of organic matter and the highest amount achieved was 58 %. No fully developed biofilm was achieved either. Biologically treating the process effluent before the chemical precipitation gave positive results as the reduction of metal ions was improved. All in all, it is believed to be possible to implement a MBBR at Renewcell if the process is given the required conditions from the beginning and a biofilm can be fully developed. Hopefully, this pilot study can show the way for future research within the field.

Global climate change is already having a noticeable impact on the environment that threatens the future of all species including humans. Unfortunately, it is currently accelerating and global temperatures will continue to rise in the coming decades mainly due to greenhouse gases produced by human activities in daily life. One of the biggest contributors is emissions from the transport sector which accounts for 32% of Swedish total CO2 emissions. Within the transport sector, freight transportation is more disruptive to traffic flow than personal vehicles because they take up more space on the road and their speed cannot be controlled as nimble as personal vehicles which causes congestion, waste of fuel and greater emissions. Based on the forecast that freight transportation will grow at a faster rate in the next few years, there is a need to manage them more intelligently while keeping up the demand for daily transport. The concept of OHD with the purpose of traffic distribution has recently been proposed and discussed in some academic and pilot projects. By shifting freight transportation from peak hours to off-peak hours, traffic can be alleviated, thus reducing emission from fuel consumption and reducing the timethey and that parts of traffic operate during the day spent on the road.This thesis presents a more comprehensive assessment of the impact of sustainability on theconcept from multiple perspectives and applies the results to the external logistics of Swedish recycling companies. An empirical study was conducted through fourteen semi-structured interviews with researchers, experts within relevant fields and companies with OHD experience. The combination of the empirical and theoretical study concludes that the opportunities and challenges coexist when the industrial companies implement OHD. The most noticeable opportunity provided by the transition is to get rid of congestion which leads to efficiency improvements, fuel savings and reductions in emissions. However, the concept also has a damaging impact as it exposes residents in the surrounding to noise pollution at the time when they need quiet rest. In addition, another challenge in implementing OHD is getting customers’ cooperation which involves the issue of access. / Klimatförändringar har en märkbar inverkan på miljön och hotar framtiden av alla jordens arter. Dessvärre ökar klimatförändringar och de globala temperaturerna kommer att fortsätta stiga under de kommande decennierna, främst på grund av växthusgaser som produceras av dagliga mänskliga aktiviteter. Transportsektorn ansvarar för 32% av den totala svenskakoldioxid utsläppen och är därav den sektorn med mest utsläpp. Inom transportsektorn orsakar godstransporterna fler hinder i trafikflödet än personbilar eftersom de tar mer plats på vägen och har inte den tekniska möjligheten att accelerera, bromsa eller bibehålla hastigheter i samma mån som personbilar. Därav orsakar de trängsel, slöseri av bränsle samt bidrar till ökat utsläpp av koldioxid. Trafikprognoser förutspår att godstransporter kommer att växa i snabbare mån än andra transportmedel under de kommande åren. Därav finns det ett behov av att hantera godstransporten mer effektivt. Konceptet OHD vars syfte är trafikfördelning av trafiken har nyligen erhållit mycket uppmärksamhet både akademiskt i forskning samt praktiskt i pilotprojekt. Genom att flytta godstransporter från högtrafikerade tider till lågtrafikerade tider kan trafiken fördelas, vilket minskar utsläppen, bränsleförbrukning samt ökar trafik effektivitet.Denna avhandling presenterar en omfattande bedömning av hållbarhetens inverkan av OHDkonceptet från flera perspektiv. Det tillämpar resultaten på externa logistikavdelningen av ett återvinningsföretag. En empirisk fallstudie innehållande fjorton semistrukturerade intervjuer med forskare, experter inom relevanta områden samt företag med erfarenhet av konceptet har genomförts. Studien erhöll slutsatserna att återvinningsindustrin kan erhålla flerfaldiga möjligheter och utmaningar orsakad av implementeringen av OHD i deras verksamhet. Där möjligheterna kan sammanställas till effektivitetsförbättringar, bränslebesparingar och minskade utsläpp, utmaningarna kommer vara ljudföroreningar samt övertygande av alla berörande nödvändiga för dess implementering.

No description available.