Do you wanna know how to recycle? Check out the guides LUGO made! The recycling guides can be both found in Dutch and English, and are specified for both Leiden and The Hague.

Most people think of waste as something dirty that needs to be disposed of as soon as possible, but Olivia Yun-An Dung's dissertation aims to show that this does not always have to be the case. For this purpose, she focuses on Tzu Chi recycling in Taiwan. There, an army of elderly volunteers has been…

What are the flows of C&DW (e.g. bricks, concrete, gypsum and wood) in the case study countries ? How to define the specification for each material to be quantified? What indicators should be used to identify the pattern of each C&DW management system? How to interpret the MFA results in relation…

The majority (80%) of e-waste generated globally are recycled informally in developing countries.

Integrating life cycle assessment (LCA) with life cycle costing (LCC) offers the opportunity to simultaneously analyze the environmental and economic aspects of product alternatives, for the integration of which a unified computational has been proposed by Heijungs et al. (2013) [1]. The project aims…

The historiography of the Bretton Woods conference of July 1944 is dominated by the personal clash between the principal negotiators, Harry Dexter White of the United States and John Maynard Keynes of Britain.

The most commonly used method for the taxonomic identification of tree trunks is wood anatomy. The number of experts in this area is decreasing, and education to become an wood anatomists takes many years. With the help of technology computer scientists of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science…

The Israeli Forum of Early Medieval Studies at The Hebrew University of Jeruzalem invites you to a lecture by Ian Wood. This lecture is entitled "Beyond the Transformation of the Roman West" and will be held on Thursday, July 1st, at 6.30 pm - 8 pm IDT.

Do e-waste workers display enhanced effects of adverse health effects due to informal e-waste processing in Nigeria? Is there a difference between the health outcomes of the exposed and the control groups? Are there difference in health effects within and between job groups (collectors, dismantlers,…

Playing with tiny building blocks might sound like child’s play, but Vera Meester knows better. On June 7 she will defend her thesis on colloids: micro particles with which you can form larger structures. Meester developed a method to make unusable structures usable.

An Interdisciplinary project group of the Master Industrial Ecology was awarded a prize for its project “From waste to resource, One chain with shared responsibility”, commissioned by AEB Amsterdam and Waag Society.

Recycling of post consumer plastic waste is problematic in that the environmental benefits are questionable and the costs are significant. It would be better to separately collect the most useful parts through the expansion of the deposit system.

Industrial Ecologist Rene Kleijn has been in the consumer watchdog TV show Radar which has been broadcasted Monday 27th of February at 20:30 (NPO 1). He has discussed the reuse and recycling of mobile phones.

Where and how are critical materials currently used and how can this information be used to develop scenarios about their future demand.

Manufacturers produce high-end technology mostly top-down with large machinery, but small particles are able to build structures by themselves from the bottom up. A major challenge is that these particles easily clump together. Leiden physicist Daniela Kraft has developed a method to use this phenomenon…

The circular economy is typically seen as the progressive alternative to our wasteful linear economy, where raw materials are used to make the products that feed today’s rampant consumerist hunger, which are then thrown away. In a fascinating article, archaeologist Maikel Kuijpers reflects on the recycling…

There have been recycling bins in all of the University buildings since 2018. Waste bins were removed from staff offices at the same time. Waste such as paper, batteries and printer cartridges is now collected in separate streams. But the big question is: what happens to the different waste streams?…

It’s Circular Economy Week, from 1 to 6 February. But what is it that makes an economy circular? And just how circular is our university? René Kleijn, lecturer on the honours class Circular Economy: from challenge to opportunity, explains.

Vinasse is a major by-product generated by the sugarcane biofuel industry. It is a source of microbes, nutrients and organic matter and often it is recycled as fertilizer.

Besides being the author of such a classic work of literature as The Hobbit, Tolkien was also Professor of English Language and Literature in Oxford. How did he incorporate his research in his fiction? An international conference on the subject is being held in Leiden on 18 June.

Merijn Tinga hit the headlines in 2016 as the Plastic Soup Surfer. In force six winds, the Leiden biologist ventured across the English Channel on a hydrofoil kiteboard made from plastic bottles. Interview with this Leiden artist who is fighting the mountain of plastic waste and finding his feet as…

Besides being the author of such a classic work of literature as The Hobbit, Tolkien was also Professor of English Language and Literature in Oxford. How did he incorporate his research in his fiction? An international conference on the subject is being held in Leiden on 18 June.

Promotor: Erik F. Smets, Co-promotores: Barbara Gravendeel, Niels Raes

My PhD thesis investigates the ecological significance of resistance against drought-induced air bubble formation inside the water conduits of plants (embolism), and the plasticity and functional aspects of stem anatomical traits in woody and herbaceous species.

In the media

The Trio, a people living in Suriname and Brazil, are ‘masters of creation’. Their immense knowledge of nature and materials enables them to live in the jungle. Archaeologist Jimmy Mans follows the Trio.

What is better for waste recycling: a plastic, paper or ceramic cup? A bio-based or fossil-based coating? Waste sorting at the source or at a recycling facility? Ask ten experts and you will get ten different opinions. We can all agree on one thing: doing nothing is not an option. Thus, Leiden University…

PhD Defence

The name ‘Jambi flora’ refers to fossil plants found as part of a rock formation from the Early Permian (296 million years old), located in the Jambi Province of Sumatra, Indonesia.

Plant architecture has distinct forms in different plant species, but also within a species the finalarchitecture of a plant is determined by its gradual development and changes therein induced by environmental conditions during the plant’s life cycle.

What are the life-cycle environmental impacts and risks to human health and ecosystems of a III-V/Si PV system? How can these be expected to change when the system is deployed at industrial scale? What are the most favourable recycling scenarios?

Recent publications

As part of LUGO’s focus on responsible recycling of e-waste (electronic waste) we participated in the Funky Phone Challenge.

Autopaghy is an intracellular degradation system which targets cytosolic components to lytic compartments for degradation and recycling of the building blocks of the cell.

An interdisciplinary and innovative research group combining History, underwater archaeology, GIS and wood provenancing methods.

Nederland Circulair! is organising the week of the circular economy, for the second time. This is a great setting for Leiden University to promote several of the university’s circular initiatives. We will kick off with an initiative by alumna Noortje Schrauwen: Raw material beachcombing.

Promotor: G.J. Kramer Co-Promotor: E.G.M. Kleijn

A sustainable resource management is an essential aspect to satisfy the current human needs without compromising the needs of future generations.

Industrialised countries mine raw materials in areas inhabited by Indigenous Peoples and appropriate the knowledge and culture of these peoples. Leiden anthropologists work to protect their rights.

PhD Defence