Still edible wasted food from households: A regional Italian case study.

A 2-year monitoring campaign was carried out within the Marche Region (Italy) to quantify the potential still edible wasted food (seFW) within the sorted (seFWsorted) and unsorted (seFWunsorted) waste streams. Results were elaborated to estimate the distribution of seFW among the five provinces and the amount per capita. Results in terms of total quantities per inhabitants (seFWindex per capita) depict an important variability between districts but almost constant in years (26-38 kg/inhabitants in 2018 and 26-36 kg/inhabitants in 2019). Scores in Marche were then used to study the national situation, adopting the same percentage factors. Analysis was performed on 2019 data. Gradual colour shade was used to identify the Regions with greater seFW production potential. Worst scores are achieved by Lazio, Lombardia and Sicilia (red), followed by others classified as orange and yellow. More than 1.5 Mt potential seFW was estimated at national level, 29% of which is due to the unsorted fraction. Results at national level were used to assess the potential environmental impact related to seFW in terms of climate change. Carbon footprint indicator was quantified per capita (69 kg equivalent carbon dioxide (CO2e)/inhabitant/year in the case of Marche) and overall (3.5 MtCO2e). In addition, an evaluation of the potential economic implications related to the greenhouse gases emitted was made using the Social Cost of Carbon. Results showed that cost of the tCO2e global damage related to seFW in Italy ranges from 35 to 700 M$.

Age Friendly Characteristics and Sense of Community of an Italian City: The Case of Macerata.

The paper presents a study about the city of Macerata, as a representative case of an urban community in the Marche Region, Italy. The aim of this paper is to assess the level of its age-friendliness by means of a quantitative analysis based on a questionnaire that relies on the well-established eight AFC domains proposed by the WHO. In addition, the sense of community (SOC) is investigated and how the older residents relate to it. Studies that analyze age-friendly Italian cities in relation to elder outcomes are limited. The paper contributes to fill this gap, and the findings reveal that the elderly respondents are not particularly satisfied about the services and the urban infrastructure of the city but show nevertheless a sense of community. It might be the combination of urban and rural features that contributes to the longevity and strong sense of community of the city despite its poor infrastructure and average services.

Ethnobotanical uses in the Ancona district (Marche region, Central Italy).

BACKGROUND: The study is a survey of the traditional uses of plants in the Ancona district, in the Marche region, Central Italy. METHODS: The information derives from ethnobotanical investigations conducted with an open questionnaire among the rural population in three areas of the Ancona district that are representative of the socio-economic and environmental assets of the entire district: the Mount Conero area on the Adriatic coast; the municipality of Osimo, as an inland hilly area; and the 'Gola della Rossa-Frasassi' area, in the Apennines. RESULTS: A total of 120 informants cited 195 species. The ethnobotanical data concern medicinal (122 species), food (119), veterinary (53), superstitious/religious (61), cosmetic (30), domestic (27), dyeing (17), recreational (17), repellent (15), craft (10), and miscellaneous (29) uses, along with inclusion in local sayings and proverbs (25). The species with the greatest number of categories of use here was Sambucus nigra L. Among the other species with the greatest numbers of categories of use, there were Matricharia chamomilla L., Salvia officinalis L., Urtica dioica L., Papaver roheas L., and Rosa canina L. For each use, comparisons with national and regional literature were made. CONCLUSIONS: Some uses are commonly known across the three areas; others are sectoral and are new for the Marche region. The survey increases our present-day knowledge of the traditional local uses of plants in the Marche region, in terms of medicinal and food uses, and of ethnobotanical aspects as a whole, which will allow many of these uses to be preserved in the future.

Determination of proline in honey: comparison between official methods, optimization and validation of the analytical methodology.

The study compares official spectrophotometric methods for the determination of proline content in honey - those of the International Honey Commission (IHC) and the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) - with the original Ough method. Results show that the extra time-consuming treatment stages added by the IHC method with respect to the Ough method are pointless. We demonstrate that the AOACs method proves to be the best in terms of accuracy and time saving. The optimized waiting time for the absorbance recording is set at 35min from the removal of reaction tubes from the boiling bath used in the sample treatment. The optimized method was validated in the matrix: linearity up to 1800mgL(-1), limit of detection 20mgL(-1), limit of quantification 61mgL(-1). The method was applied to 43 unifloral honey samples from the Marche region, Italy.