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Plastics used in agriculture, commonly known as agriplastics (AP), offer numerous advantages in terrestrial agriculture, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, but the diffusion of AP-intensive practices has led to extensive pollution. This review aims to synthesise scientific and policy discussions surrounding AP, examining evidence of their benefits and detrimental environmental and agricultural impacts. Following the proposal of a preliminary general taxonomy of AP, this paper presents the findings from a survey conducted among international experts from the plastic industry, farmer organisations, NGOs and environmental research institutes. This analysis highlights knowledge gaps, demands and perspectives for the sustainable future use of AP. Stakeholder positions vary on the options of ‘rejection’ or ‘reduction’ of AP, as well as the role of alternative materials such as (bio)degradable and compostable plastics. However, there is consensus on critical issues such as redesign, labelling, traceability, environmental safety standards, deployment and retrieval standards, as well as innovative waste management approaches. All stakeholders express concern for the environment. A ‘best practice’-based circular model was elaborated capturing these perspectives. In the context of global food systems increasingly reliant on AP, scientists emphasise the need to simultaneously preserve nature-based and traditional knowledge-based sustainable agricultural practices to enhance food system resilience.

Urban environments can be turned greener and more sustainable by letting in vegetation. The application of green façades on buildings’ vertical surfaces is a viable option that brings various advantages. This study focuses on the energy benefit provided by an evergreen green façade in Mediterranean climate conditions. The results came from a long experimental campaign, heat fluxes evaluation and statistical analyses. The thermal behaviour of the experimental green façade was analysed all year round, highlighting differences between warm and cold periods and between time of the day. The main advantage was assessed in terms of energy saving, defined as heat flux reduction through the wall covered with vegetation in comparison with an unvegetated wall. The study pointed out that energy saving was achieved throughout the year, but in different time of the day based on the season. A daytime energy saving was obtained in warm periods due to the shading effect and the plants evapotranspiration. A night-time benefit was reached in cold periods mainly thanks to the thermal and wind barrier action of the green layer. The results showed daily mean values of energy saving equal to 11.47 W m-2 for a warm period and to 3.23 W m-2 for a cold period. The statistical analysis highlighted that the energy saving was positively influenced by external air temperature especially at daytime. Overall, higher energy saving was provided by the green façade when higher external air temperature values were recorded. This research contributes to fill existing literature gaps on the yearly behaviour of green façades and on the energy benefits these provide.

Horticultural protected cultivation has spread throughout the world as it has proven to be extremely effective. In recent years, the greenhouse engineering research field has become one of the main research topics within greenhouse farming. The main objectives of the current study were to identify the major research topics and their trends during the last four decades by analyzing the co-occurrence network of keywords associated with greenhouse engineering publications. A total of 3804 pertinent documents published, in 1981–2021, were analyzed and discussed. China, the United States, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands have been the most active countries with more than 36% of the relevant literature. The keyword cluster analysis suggested the presence of five principal research topics: energy management and storage; monitoring and control of greenhouse climate parameters; automation of greenhouse operations through the internet of things (IoT) and wireless sensor network (WSN) applications; greenhouse covering materials and microclimate optimization in relation to plant growth; structural and functional design for improving greenhouse stability, ventilation and microclimate. Recent research trends are focused on real-time monitoring and automatic control systems based on the IoT and WSN technologies, multi-objective optimization approaches for greenhouse climate control, efficient artificial lighting and sustainable greenhouse crop cultivation using renewable energy.

Plastic pollution, largely perceived by the public as a major risk factor that strongly impacts sea life and preservation, has an even higher negative impact on terrestrial ecosystems. Indeed, quantitative data about plastic contamination on agricultural soils are progressively emerging in alarming ways. One of the main contributors to this pollution involves the mismanagement of agricultural plastic waste (APW), i.e., the residues from plastic material used to improve the productivity of agricultural crops, such as greenhouse covers, mulching films, irrigation pipes, etc. Wrong management of agricultural plastics during and after their working lives may pollute the agricultural soil and aquifers by releasing macro-, micro-, and nanoplastics, which could also enter into the human food chain. In this study, we aimed to develop a methodology for the spatial quantification of agricultural plastics to achieve sustainable post-consumer management. Through an inductive approach, based on statistical data from the agricultural census of the administrative areas of the Italian provinces, an agricultural plastic coefficient (APC) was proposed, implemented, and spatialized in a GIS environment, to produce a database of APW for each type of crop. The proposed methodology can be exported to other countries. It represents valuable support that could realize, in integration with other tools, an atlas of agricultural plastics, which may be a starting point to plan strategies and actions targeted to the reduction of the plastic footprint of agriculture.