Use when targeting Resources, Conservation & Recycling or deciding whether a resource-efficiency/circular-economy manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the materials-and-waste circularity contribution bar, material-flow-analysis expectations, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics.
SkillScore96Maintained
Automatic
◆Research pack
Last verified 8/15/2026
What it changes
Passed 22 of 23 test cases with the skill, and 6 of 23 without it.
Without skill26%
With skill96%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
Includes label [Fit]
Includes tag [Fit] Low
Includes tag [Fit] High
and 9 more in the full report
16 fixed6 passed either way1 still failing0 broke
Pass-rate lift
+70 pp
Tokens
+26%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-46%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/15/2026v122 of 23 cases passed with skill
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 16 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 16
Prompt
We surveyed 500 households regarding attitudes toward municipal recycling education campaigns in three European cities, relying on Likert-scale sentiment data without quantifying material collection volumes or waste flows. Check suitability for Resources, Conservation & Recycling using the required output format.
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
Includes tag [Fit] Low
Missed
Passed
Identifies lack of quantified material flows as top rejection risk
Passed
Passed
case-10 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/15/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
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.