Industrial Ecology: Promoting a Healthy Environment and Economy

1
Industrial Ecology  Promoting a Healthy
Environment and Economy 

• Naomi Stone
• MugenKioku Corporation
• February 3, 2006

2
Background Overview

• Education
• MIT, BS Environmental Engineering Science
• Columbia University, MBA Entrepreneurial Finance
  and Economics
• Professional
• URS Corporation
• Trinity Consultants

3
Background Overview

• Student Ambassador to Switzerland
• Global economic and environmental issues
• United Nations Foundation for International
  Partnerships
• United Nations Global Compact
• Ecotourism
• Founded Two Companies
• EcoGym
• MugenKioku

4
Environmental Idealism

• Strong feelings about the issues
• Greenhouse warming, depletion of the ozone layer,
  cancer causing agents, old growth forests
• Idealism brings renewed vigor to jaded thinking
• Efforts of advocates
• Boycotts, protests

5
Realistic Change?

• What happens when the attention dies down?
• Why is there resistance to change?
• Real World perceptions
• Environment vs. Industry
• Environmentalists pushing for more pollution?

6
The Bottom Line

• Make Industry More
• Environmentally Friendly
• Minimize Effect on Bottom Line
• PR Windfall

7
The Bottom Line

• Make Industry More
• Environmentally Friendly
• Improve the Bottom Line
• REAL CHANGE

8
Clearing Up Misconceptions

• Speaking a language that both environmentalists
  and businessmen can understand
• The Extremes
• Shutting Down Industry
• vs.
• Ignoring Environment

9
Clearing Up Misconceptions

• We NEED Industry
• Products/Services
• No More Free Pass to Unchecked Pollution
• Not a Guarantee of Financial Success
• Avoid Selling Out to Either Side

10
Industrial Ecology
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Schools of Thought

• Old Way
• Linear Thinking
• Extract, process, dump
• New Way
• Incorporates Complete Cycle
• Optimize raw material usage, processing, and
  disposal

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New Way of Thinking

• Emulate the natural ecosystem
• Most effective to consider IE from inception
• Can be applied retroactively with beneficial
  results
• Ranges from major process changes to very minor
  improvements
• At the very least reduce pollution, fees, and
  fines

13
Industrial Ecology Parks

• Improve the ability of Industries to work
  together through proximity
• One companys wastes is anothers raw material
• Cooperation resulting in less impact to the
  environment at reduced costs to the companies

14
Effective Idealism

• Industry is a given
• But improvements must continue
• Limit the impact to the environment
• Move from winner takes all to win-win
  mentality

15
40 Eggs for Success

• Negotiations between MBA students
• Farmer with 40 eggs
• The success of each negotiator is dependent on
  of eggs bought
• Each has same amount of money

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40 Eggs for Success

• Information is power
• Both sides need to maximize of eggs
• Reputation on the line
• No one willing to accept less than half, so no
  one got more than half
• Everybody left with 20 eggs

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Co-opetition

• Each member of one negotiating pair got 40 eggs
• How?
• Through communication, not just mere competition
• Each needed the eggs for a different purpose

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Co-opetition

• One needed the yolks for a food product
• The other needed the shells for a scientific
  study of an enzyme
• By cooperating, each realized they could
  effectively share ALL of the raw material
• Minimized cost and waste, AND
• Maximized end product

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Case Study Phosphate Waste

• Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
  (USA)
• Example of emerging technology, not proven yet
• Advancements with dedicated resources

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Case Study Phosphate Waste

• Every year, the fabricated metal products
  industry generates phosphate sludge waste on the
  order of tens of millions of pounds.
• Who?
• What?
• Why?

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Case Study Phosphate Waste

• Prior to Study
• No beneficial reuse of waste sludge
• Millions of pounds simply being dumped into
  landfills each year
• New Research
• Iron phosphate glass to replace silica-based
  glass fibers
• Low energy alternative, lowered risk

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Case Study Phosphate Waste

• Results
• High quality raw material
• Energy savings of 6.8 MMBtu per ton
• Reduced worker exposure to hazardous silica dust
• New applications
• Nuclear waste vitrification
• Fiberglass

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Case Study Phosphate Waste

• Three primary aspects studied
• Feasibility
• Can sludge be turned into iron phosphate glass?
• Regulations
• Are new emissions or health hazards introduced?
• Qualitative/Quantitative
• How much quality product can be made?

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Case Study Phosphate Waste

• The Game Plan
• Obtain samples from at least ten industrial sites
  
• Analyze for critical iron phosphate glass
  components, RCRA metals, and other elements that
  may affect air emissions
• Determine variability of sludge
• Process into glass
• Evaluate quality and quantity of sludge

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Case Study Phosphate Waste

• This project will be the first study of its kind
  to evaluate the regulatory and commercial
  feasibility of capturing the value of millions of
  pounds of industrial phosphate sludge waste.
  Without this project, it is unlikely that the
  beneficial reuse of industrial phosphate sludge
  would ever occur.
• --U.S. EPA

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Case Study ScotAsh, Ltd.

• Building Materials Industry
• Resource and Energy Intensive
• Tremendous quantity of virgin raw materials
  (e.g., limestone, clay, shale) to make product
• Vast amounts of fossil fuels and coal used to
  reach extremely high temperatures needed
• Companies today are committing to the use of
  Secondary Materials

27
Case Study ScotAsh, Ltd.

• Joint venture between Lafarge Cement and Scottish
  Power
• To reduce collective virgin raw material
  consumption and by-product waste

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Case Study ScotAsh, Ltd.

• Fly ash and bottom ash are by-products of coal
  combustion in power plant furnaces
• This waste can be used as raw materials in the
  manufacture of cement, concrete, and other
  building materials

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Case Study ScotAsh, Ltd.

• ScotAsh formed with three objectives
• Reduce waste needlessly filling up landfills
  through recycling
• Concurrently reduce Lafarges consumption of
  virgin raw materials to make their products
• Improve the Bottom Line
• Accomplished by the first two objectives.
• Reduced costs
• PR benefits

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Case Study ScotAsh, Ltd.

• Results
• Each year, 400,000 metric tons of fly ash and
  bottom ash are recycled
• A single ton of fly ash in cement application
  conserves 1.6 metric tons of virgin materials and
  avoids 1 ton of CO2 emissions. Recycling bottom
  ash results in a 1 to 1 savings of virgin
  aggregates
• The environmental benefits are undeniable, BUT
• This recycling actually lowered the cost of
  cement productionimproved the Bottom Line

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Case Study Holcim, Ltd.

• Also involved in cement production
• Reduced the use of virgin materials in two ways
• Substituted the use of fossil fuels with
  alternative, waste derived fuels
• Like ScotAsh, used waste to substitute virgin
  materials in the manufacture of cement

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Case Study Holcim, Ltd.

• Commitment to increasing its use of waste
  materials
• In 2004, thermal substitution rate was 13.2,
  more than double the 1990 figure
• Equivalent to replacing 1.04 million tons of oil
  per year and recovering 2.3 million tons of waste

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Case Study Holcim, Ltd.

• Worldwide, approx. 80 of alternative fuels are
  waste oils and non-hazardous wastes
• Used tires, plastic, wood, sewage sludge and
  others
• In Western Europe, over 50 of the waste used as
  an energy source is industrial waste
• Increasingly use hazardous waste derived fuels

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Accumulation of Waste

• Waste is a huge issue
• Options for recycling and disposing of many waste
  materials and industrial by-products are often
  limited
• In Europe alone, more than 350 million tires are
  wasted per year.

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Handling of Waste

• Where recycling is not possible, incineration or
  landfill is the most common disposal practice
• Using waste as an alternative fuel or raw
  material benefits society as well as the company
• For Holcim, it reduces fuel costs and CO2
  emissions.
• For society, these wastes are typically difficult
  to dispose of in any other way

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Challenges

• Not every waste, at present, is suitable for
  recycling into a useful product
• Recycling may eliminate waste but it must not be
  at the expense of increased emissions or product
  quality
• Use of waste and by-products as fuels may
  actually perpetuate the production of these
  wastes, by offering a legal, cost-efficient
  solution to disposal

37
Challenges

• Legal, cost-efficient solutions are necessary
  as long as there is a legitimate need for the
  original product
• For example, until a replacement for tires is
  found, they should be recycled and reused to the
  greatest extent possible

38
Inaction is Unacceptable

• Population forecasted to reach 9-10 billion by
  2050
• Many renewable and non-renewable resources having
  already reached or exceeded their carrying
  capacity
• Finding legitimate uses for waste and new sources
  of raw materials is imperative

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Accepting the Challenges

• These are not the end-all solutions, just
  examples of what can be achieved
• If we wait until the perfect renewable,
  non-polluting, non-hazardous energy source is
  discovered to act...we could be waiting a long
  time
• Wastes are piling up and resources are being
  depleted, we dont have luxury the time