--- name: brycewang-stanford/resources-conservation-and-recycling source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/brycewang-stanford-resources-conservation-and-recycling@1/SKILL.md source_sha256: dafa7e12b82a --- # Resources, Conservation & Recycling (resources-conservation-and-recycling) ## Journal positioning Resources, Conservation & Recycling (RCR) is the Elsevier journal for resource efficiency, waste management, recycling, and the circular economy of materials — material-flow and substance-flow analysis, recycling and resource-recovery technologies and systems, and the conservation and reuse of materials. Its defining expectation is a **materials-and-waste circularity contribution**: a study that quantifies, improves, or systematizes how materials are conserved, recovered, recycled, or kept in productive use. Relative to the Journal of Cleaner Production's broader cleaner-production/sustainability remit, RCR is anchored in the physical reality of materials and waste flows. A general sustainability-management essay, or a recycling case with no quantified material outcome, is a weak fit. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current author guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live RCR submission guidance. ## When to trigger - The author names Resources, Conservation & Recycling and wants a fit/framing check for a resource-efficiency or recycling paper. - A material-flow, recycling-technology, or resource-recovery study must be re-framed around a quantified materials-circularity contribution. - The author is deciding between RCR and the Journal of Cleaner Production, or between RCR and a process-engineering venue. - The author needs RCR's materials/waste-circularity bar (MFA/SFA, recovery yields) and desk-reject heuristics. ## Scope & topic fit - Material-flow analysis (MFA) and substance-flow analysis (SFA): stocks, flows, losses, and efficiency at product, sector, urban, national, or global scale. - Recycling and resource-recovery technologies and systems: collection, sorting, processing, and upgrading of post-consumer and industrial materials, with quantified yields and quality. - Circular-economy strategies for materials: reuse, remanufacturing, urban mining, and closing material loops, with measured circularity indicators. - Waste management systems and their resource, environmental, and economic performance. - Critical-materials, secondary-resource, and by-product valorization with quantitative recovery and quality outcomes. - Indicators, accounting frameworks, and data infrastructure for measuring material circularity and resource efficiency. ## Method & evidence bar - The contribution must deliver a **quantified materials/waste-circularity result**: flows, recovery rates, recycled-content, losses, or resource-efficiency gains, not qualitative claims. - MFA/SFA studies must state system boundaries, reference year, data sources and quality, mass-balance closure, and uncertainty in the flows. - Recycling/recovery technology claims require measured yields, product quality, and where relevant energy and reagent inputs, benchmarked against current practice. - Circularity indicators must be defined and reproducible; avoid ad-hoc metrics without justification or comparability. - Systems, scenario, and policy analyses need defensible data, baseline comparison, and sensitivity/uncertainty treatment. - Conclusions about resource savings must follow from the quantified balance, not from optimistic extrapolation of a lab-scale result. ## Structure & house style - Standard research-article format; the journal also publishes reviews and shorter formats — re-check current article types and length on the live guide. - The introduction must frame the materials/waste-circularity gap and the quantified contribution, not a generic sustainability motivation. - Methods must make the material accounting reproducible — boundaries, data, mass balance, and uncertainty for MFA/SFA; experimental detail and yields for recovery technology. - Figures should be flow- and balance-oriented (Sankey diagrams, stock/flow accounts, recovery-yield comparisons), with full inventories and data in SI. - Graphical abstract and highlights are expected; re-check current specifications on the live guide. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the Elsevier anchors, then cite the current Resources, Conservation & Recycling page you checked. - Search the live site for "Resources, Conservation and Recycling guide for authors" and follow the current Elsevier version. - Re-check article types, length, abstract, and graphical-abstract/highlights requirements. - Confirm MFA/SFA reporting expectations (boundaries, reference year, mass-balance closure, uncertainty). - Re-check data-availability, flow/inventory data-table deposition, and supplementary-data policy. - Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure, and open-access terms. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] The result is a quantified materials/waste-circularity outcome (flows, yields, losses, recycled content). - [ ] MFA/SFA reports boundaries, reference year, data quality, mass-balance closure, and uncertainty. - [ ] Recovery/recycling technology yields and product quality are measured and benchmarked. - [ ] Circularity indicators are defined, justified, and reproducible. - [ ] Resource-saving conclusions follow from the quantified balance, not lab-scale extrapolation. - [ ] Highlights, graphical abstract, and reproducible accounting are prepared per the live guide. ## Common desk-reject triggers - A general sustainability or management essay with no quantified material flow or recovery result. - MFA/SFA with undefined boundaries, no mass-balance closure, or no uncertainty. - Recycling-technology claims with no measured yield, quality, or benchmark to current practice. - Ad-hoc circularity metrics with no definition, justification, or comparability. - Lab-scale recovery extrapolated to system-wide resource savings without justification. - Scope mismatch: a broad cleaner-production/sustainability or pure-engineering paper with no materials-circularity contribution. ## Re-routing decision - Broad cleaner-production/sustainability scope (technology, management, policy, LCA) → `journal-of-cleaner-production`. - Pollutant emission/impact of waste rather than material recovery → `environmental-pollution`. - Critical/invited synthesis of the field → `annual-review-of-environment-and-resources`. - Treatment-engineering/technology emphasis → `environmental-science-and-technology`. - Broad solutions/sustainability-science framing → `nature-sustainability`. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Resources, Conservation & Recycling [Topic tags] <2–3 closest circular-materials topics> [Circularity contribution] [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```