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The new campus of Tianjin University was designed, built and now operates following a green and sustainable concept. The campus’ eco-friendly water environment was formed by establishing a water recycling system. The campus is divided into three drainage sections based on the masterplan. Each drainage section adopts different methods of collecting, utilizing and discharging water according to specific conditions, aimed at achieving both high drainage capability and the efficient utilisation of rainwater. The campus was designed so runoff pollution is reduced through the utilisation of low-impact development methods, ensuring the quality of the recharge water. Through studying the fundamentals of treatment measures and models for simulating water quality, water circulation, constructed wetlands and pollution control of rain runoff, parameters for efficient water recycling could be mathematically forecast, ensuring that stakeholders can be continuously engaged in improving and preserving the water quality of landscaped water on campus. The overall system integrates a variety of measures being implemented into one cohesive entity, which contributes to establishing the sustainable and healthy water cycling system of the green campus.

This chapter discusses the profound and influential impact the construction industry has on the national economy, together with the huge negative effect it has on the environment. It argues that by adopting smart and industrialised prefabrication (SAIP), the Australian construction industry, and the construction industry globally, is well positioned to leverage the circular economy to advance future industries with less impact on our natural environment. It discusses aspects of the application of digital technologies, specifically building information modelling, virtualisation, augmented and virtual reality and 3D printing, coupled with reverse logistics as a proponent for advancing the circular economy through smart, digitally enabled, industrialised prefabrication. It further postulates a framework for SAIP for the circular economy.

Biosolids, the residual solids from wastewater treatment operations and once considered a waste product by the industry, are now becoming increasingly recognised as a multifunctional resource with growing opportunities for marketable use. This shift in attitude towards biosolids management is spurred on by increasing volatility in energy, fertilizer and commodity markets as well as moves by the global community towards mitigating global warming and the effects of climate change. This chapter will provide an overview of current global biosolids practices (paired with a number of Australian examples) as well as discuss potential future uses of biosolids. Additionally, present and future risks and opportunities of biosolids use are highlighted, including potential policy implications.

Conventional shopping-scapes are designed to promote a linear form of consumption. Products are moved from production systems through consumer distribution nodal points. The consumption of commodities through these points is promoted as the main, if not only, legitimate activity of shopping centres. A circular economic (CE) paradigm offers an alternative to the current model of linear consumption so that there are restorative processes to ensure products, components and materials are valued at all stages of product life (Ellen Macarthur Foundation, 2013). However, this model, like its contemporary linear model, overlooks the opportunities for more socially rewarding consumption that could particularly be addressed through the shopping scape. The ByeBuy! Shop was conceived to test ideas on an alternative shopping scape to increase social engagement and reduced consumption without the use of money for exchange. Accordingly, it is used here to exemplify a CE paradigm.

Designing and manufacturing long-lasting things and minimizing the use of material resources are central concerns to the circular economy. Yet, repairing and repurposing objects, and the experiences and knowledge of those who extend the life of objects at the consumption level, are absent from discussions on the circular economy. Based on in-depth interviews focussing on practices of repair and repurposing within households, this article interrogates waste and its capacity to disturb, impede or provoke practices central to the circular economy. Re-considering waste within discussions on the circular economy is a way to bring to the surface the overlooked capacity of waste to enable or hinder household engagement in practices of repair and repurposing through waste’s heterogeneous and shifting components, sacredness and morality.

The Waste Management Hierarchy is a well-established framework for conceptualizing the spectrum of desirable behaviours to manage, reduce and avoid waste. To date, research relating to the householder behaviours on the Waste Management Hierarchy has primarily focused on the lower order disposal and recycling behaviours, reflecting the areas of historical policy attention. Recently, however, policy focus has shifted to ‘higher order’ behaviours such as reuse and avoidance, in line with Circular Economy thinking. To address the measurement gap, this chapter develops and tests a battery of householder waste behaviour measures across the entire waste hierarchy. The battery was piloted with 573 South Australian householders, where the ‘higher’ order waste behaviours are more likely to be displayed as the Waste Hierarchy has been embedded in waste policy directives for many years. Findings empirically validate the Waste Management Hierarchy, deliver a quantified benchmark of the prevalence of behaviours across its spectrum and explore the underlying motives driving pro-environmental behaviour.

The production of waste creates both direct and indirect environmental impacts. A range of strategies are available to reduce the generation of waste by industry and households, and to select waste treatment approaches that minimise environmental harm. However, evaluating these strategies requires reliable and detailed data on waste production and treatment. Unfortunately, published Australian waste data are typically highly aggregated, published by a variety of entities in different formats and do not form a complete time-series. We demonstrate a technique for constructing a multi-regional waste supply-use (MRWSU) framework for Australia using information from numerous waste data sources. This is the first subnational waste input–output framework to be constructed for Australia. We construct the framework using the Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory (IELab), a cloud-hosted computational platform for building Australian multiregional input–output tables. The structure of the framework complies with the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA). We demonstrate the use of the MRWSU framework by calculating waste ‘footprints’ that enumerate the full domestic supply chain waste production for Australian consumers.