Konstadinos Abeliotis

Attitudes and behaviour of Greek households regarding food waste prevention.

Food waste is a waste stream with serious economic, environmental and social implications. The emphasis of the reported research is on the food waste generated by households in Greece. A structured questionnaire was utilised in order to identify the attitudes of the respondents and investigate the prevalence of certain behavioural good practices that can prevent the generation of food waste. The research, to our knowledge the first of its kind in Greece, took place in February and March 2012. Face-to-face interviews were employed, resulting to a total of 231 consumers fully completing the questionnaire. Results indicate that, based on self-reported behaviour, people in Greece have positive attitudes towards food waste prevention and that their habits are close to the good practices suggested in the literature for reducing food waste. For instance, most respondents do plan their food shopping in a multitude of ways and are very careful in their purchases of fresh food supplies. However, about 40% misunderstand the meaning of food date labels. The positive findings are strongly influenced by the severe recession experienced in the country, which makes consumers more conscious of their spending. Results may serve as a yardstick to further promote and establish food waste prevention behaviour at the household level on an environmental and social awareness basis that may outlast the economic crisis.

Knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of secondary school students on renewable feedstocks/biomass: the case of Greece

Green Chemistry is a new approach of chemistry that aims to satisfy the global concerns and demand for sustainability. Green Chemistry is guided by twelve very specific principles of chemical practice. Among them, the seventh one promotes the use of renewable raw materials and feedstock, such as biomass. The widespread application of Green Chemistry principles in everyday life can be achieved by incorporating its paradigm into simple experiments and activities at regular school courses. Thus, an exploration of the students’ background is required. The aim of this study is to provide baseline data on Greek student’s knowledge, beliefs and attitudes related to the seventh Green Chemistry principle namely the use of renewable feedstocks, in order to facilitate introduction of appropriate provision in the school curricula and practice in Greece. Our results indicate that there is a serious knowledge gap among secondary school students regarding the main biomass formation mechanism and the connection of biomass to the global food supply in addition to the almost complete lack of knowledge of the main Green Chemistry principles. Regarding their attitudes, students are positive towards the use of biomass and express a very strong will to be environmentally informed. A logical conclusion of our research is that the development of relevant material that will focus on the application of Green Chemistry principles in everyday life in combination with a training of a core group of educators could be considered as the first steps towards the introduction of Green Chemistry principles in the secondary education system of Greece.

Food waste prevention in Athens, Greece: The effect of family characteristics

Food waste is a stream that becomes increasingly important in terms of its prevention potential. There is a large number of behaviours that can be associated with food waste generation and the efforts towards food waste prevention. A questionnaire study was carried in order to study consumer behaviour related to food provision and wastage in Greece. Proper practices of the respondents that can prevent the generation of food waste were investigated using nine behavioural scales, which were defined on the basis of similar studies in other countries. A structured questionnaire was utilised in order to test those behaviours against the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents. The results of the study indicate that in terms of inferential statistical analysis, among the numerous variables examined, those that enhance food waste prevention are the involvement of the respondent in cooking, the annoyance towards food waste generation and the education level.

Life cycle assessment of food waste home composting in Greece

Home composting is a waste prevention measure related to the management of the households food waste, garden trimmings, and other smaller organic household waste streams. Thus, home composting is an alternative way of exploitation of the “biomass” generated from the households. It is an alternative to centralized composting. Biomass utilization is explicitly stated as a principle of green chemistry. The aim of this paper is presentation of the results of a case study dealing with the life cycle environmental assessment of home composting of food waste in households in Greece. The results of the study indicate that home composting is environmentally preferable over the current organic waste management situation in Greece.

Laundry Performance: Effect of Detergent and Additives on Consumer Satisfaction

Abstract To identify key features in the perception of consumer satisfaction of washing performance, a survey among detergent users from five European countries was run. Respondents from each country were volunteers recruited through the Internet without previous selection criteria. The size of the sample (over 4,000 participants) and the wide geographical distribution of the respondents delivered a large set of data. According to the collected answers, respondents show a significant degree of satisfaction with the detergents they use, regardless of type and country. They were only dissatisfied by tough stains and exceptional problems with their wash loads. Detergent additives are widely used but the use and type of laundry additive showed significant differences from country to country. Respondents understood the usefulness of stain removers and showed a high degree of satisfaction using them. Damages to textiles, when it occurs, are not usually associated with the quality of the detergent used but with other factors in the washing process.

Urban Farming in the Era of Crisis in Greece: The Case Study of the Urban Garden of Ag. Anargiri-Kamatero and Fili

Over the past couple of decades, urban agriculture has increasingly gained recognition as a viable intervention strategy for the urban poor to earn extra income throughout the world. Greece is now entering the seventh year of an economic crisis, and urban agriculture in abandoned municipal urban spaces is seen as a means for fighting the poverty of certain social groups.

A Database Tool for Raising Awareness on the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Household Packaging Waste

Packaging is a key stage of the life cycle of a product regarding its environmental impact. Also, the contribution of the households in the success of packaging recycling programs is well documented. The aim of this paper is the presentation of the development of a computer-aided tool that assists consumers in minimising their everyday environmental impact via the environmental assessment of the products’ packaging coupled with the recycling behaviour of the consumer. The tool has been developed in Microsoft Access and consists of a user-friendly interface and four databases which contain data on the packaging materials of consumer products and their weights alongside with data for the recycling rates of various waste packaging materials in Greece. The user inputs the number of packages per product that he/she bought followed by his/her recycling habits. The tool then calculates the environmental impacts of his/her choices (both consumer and recycling). The key advantage of the developed computer tool is its simplicity, both conceptual and operable. On the other hand, its main drawback is that impact assessment data are based on Dutch conditions. Overall, the implications of the developed computer-aided tool for informing and raising consumer awareness on packaging waste recycling are enormous.