Leveraging blockchain concepts as watermarkers of plastics for sustainable waste management in progressing circular economy.

Blockchain-integrated waste management and circular economy are emergent concepts that target minimising waste generation and fluctuations of resource commodity. Blockchain can support a circular economy and green principles by enabling information transparency, reliability and automation. Redesigning plastics by molecular tagging is the way forward to ensure synthetic plastics are kept in an infinite loop and support closed-loop recycling. The involvement of major corporations in product development and blockchain-integrated closed-loop recycling has resulted in several successful green chemical approaches toward circular plastic economy projects. Government policies and legislations are progressively supporting plastic redesigning for improving the plastic circular economy. Nevertheless, a systematic approach is required in addressing blockchain technology and plastic redesigning to effectively leverage circular economy initiatives.

Bioconversion of agro-industry sourced biowaste into biomaterials via microbial factories - A viable domain of circular economy.

Global increase in demand for food supply has resulted in surplus generation of wastes. What was once considered wastes, has now become a resource. Studies were carried out on the conversion of biowastes into wealth using methods such as extraction, incineration and microbial intervention. Agro-industry biowastes are promising sources of carbon for microbial fermentation to be transformed into value-added products. In the era of circular economy, the goal is to establish an economic system which aims to eliminate waste and ensure continual use of resources in a close-loop cycle. Biowaste collection is technically and economically practicable, hence it serves as a renewable carbon feedstock. Biowastes are commonly biotransformed into value-added materials such as bioethanol, bioplastics, biofuels, biohydrogen, biobutanol and biogas. This review reveals the recent developments on microbial transformation of biowastes into biotechnologically important products. This approach addresses measures taken globally to valorize waste to achieve low carbon economy. The sustainable use of these renewable resources is a positive approach towards waste management and promoting circular economy.