Demand for particleboards keeps increasing and as such more trees are fell for its production, engendering deforestation. For the purpose of reducing falling of trees, this study, focused on recycling of waste paper in the development of paperboard as alternative to particleboards used for furniture and interior household applications. Kenaf fiber (KF) was blended at varying proportions of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 wt.% with 20 wt.% constant cement and 20 wt.% constant coconut shell powder while the remaining was paper pulp. Board specimen developed were cured for 14, 28, and 90 days and mechanical properties were examined. Results obtained showed that fiber dosage improved bond strength and screw holding strengths as compared with the control mix. Similarly, modulus of rupture was enhanced with KF loading as compared with control mix while 1 to 3 wt.% KF spawned enhancement of modulus of elasticity. However, 4 and 5 wt.% KF led to a reduction in the modulus. Infusion of the fiber enhanced tensile strength from 1 to 3 wt.% content. 14-day and 28-day curing periods were observed to improve properties while the 90-day curing period is detrimental to all properties. Optimization via signal-to-noise ratio revealed an optimum mix of 2 wt.% obtained for fiber and an optimum curing duration of 28 days.

Urban planners require an understanding of the composition as well as the spatial distribution of household solid waste (HSW) components to design policies for various wards of a city. This paper aims to study the composition as well as the spatial dependency of the HSW components generated by the wards forming Annaba city in Algeria. The results of the HSW composition have revealed the high content of the organic matters which represents 50%, the textiles with 13.6%, and the plastics with 10% of the total quantity; the rest of the composition was 5.9% of paper and paperboard, 3% of metals, and 1% of glass. Furthermore, the result of the global and the local Moran indexes calculated and mapped through the ArcGIS 10.7 software shows that there is an evident spatial dependency for almost all the HSW components. Thus, 18% of the total quantity is produced by clustered wards, which propose the segregation of individual waste components at the source as an efficient way to support the reuse, recovery, and recycling. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have revealed that 60% of the emissions are the methane produced from the landfill, and 30% is due to the open burning in the air of waste.

A comparative evaluation of paperboard mill sludge (PMS) versus mixed culture bacteria (MCB) as inoculum for hydrogen production from paperboard mill wastewater (PMW) was investigated. The experiments were conducted at different initial cultivation pHs, inoculums to substrate ratios (ISRs gVS/gCOD), and hydraulic retention times (HRTs). The peak hydrogen yield (HY) of 5.29 ± 0.16 and 1.22 ± 0.11 mmol/gCODᵢₙᵢₜᵢₐₗ was occurred at pH = 5 for MCB and PMS, respectively. At pH of 5, the HY and COD removal achieved the highest values of 2.26 ± 0.14 mmol/gCODᵢₙᵢₜᵢₐₗ and 86 ± 1.6 % at ISR = 6 for MCB, and 2.38 ± 0.25 mmol/gCODᵢₙᵢₜᵢₐₗ and 60.4 ± 2.5 % at ISRs = 3 for PMS. The maximum hydrogen production rate was 93.75 ± 8.9 mmol/day at HRT = 9.6 h from continuous upflow anaerobic reactor inoculated with MCB. Meanwhile, the 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene fragments indicated a dominance of a novel hydrogen-producing bacterium of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia for PMS microbial community. On the other hand, Escherichia fergusonii and Enterobacter hormaechei were the predominant species for MCB.