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

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Resources, Conservation & Recycling
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest circular-materials topics>
[Circularity contribution] <the quantified flow/recovery/efficiency result>
[Method/evidence] <are boundaries, mass balance, yields, and uncertainty reported?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / MFA reporting / highlights / data policy / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>