Moving Toward a Cyclic Society: Industrial Ecology

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Moving Toward a Cyclic Society Industrial
Ecology
Linear Industry Nature Industrial
Ecology Waste Resource Product
Design Component Product as Service
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Highlights of a Linear Production System
Extraction/Mining
Primary Processing
Secondary Processing
Tertiary Processing
Finishing/Assembly/Packaging
Distribution
Consumption
Disposal
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Problems with a Linear Production System

• At each step in production process, wastes are
  generated
• over 95 of the materials extracted for use in
  manufacturing durable products becomes waste
  BEFORE the product reaches the consumer (32 tons
  of waste for every 1 ton of product!).
• Much fossil fuel consumed.
• At each step in the production process
• in transporting raw materials and partially
  finished products
• On left need to keep going back to the well
  to extract more and more raw material.
• On right need to keep finding new places to
  dump regular solid waste and the hazardous wastes
  generated by many production practices.

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Results of Our Linear Production System

• Average American generates three times their body
  weight in solid, liquid and hazardous industrial
  wastes DAILY.
• Over 17 billion catalogs are mailed to Americans
  every year 59 for every man, woman and child.
  Only 6 out of 42 catalog makers use any
  significant recycled content.
• J. Crew, Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean are among
  companies whose catalog has NO recycled content.
• We throw away 2 BILLION disposable razors, 30
  MILLION cell phones, 18 MILLION computers, and 8
  MILLION television sets EVERY YEAR!
• We throw away enough carpet every year to more
  than cover the state of Delaware.

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World of Yesterday
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Think Like Mother Nature
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Alternatives to Linear Production

• Industrial Ecology design industrial system
  that operates like a natural system.
• Waste Food!
• Product as Service rather than selling a
  consumer a product, the manufacturer leases the
  service of the product to them.
• Design for Disassembly / Take-Back Programs /
  Cradle-to-Cradle
• consumer products should be designed to be easily
  disassembled after their useful life
• 90 of useful material can be reused in a new
  generation of products.

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Industrial Ecology

• Industrial ecology connotes an industrial system
  that operates much like a natural ecosystem. In
  natural ecosystems, materials and energy
  circulate continuously in a complex web of
  interactions Microorganisms turn animal wastes
  into food for plants the plants, in turn, are
  either eaten by animals or enter the cycle
  through death and decay. While ecosystems produce
  some actual wastes, on the whole they are
  self-contained and self-sustaining. (Robert
  Frosch, 1995)

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Kalundborg, Denmark
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Kalundborg, Denmark

• Industries exchange wastes
• Companies made agreements 70s 90s
• Asnaes Coal-fired power plant
• Statoil Oil Refinery
• Gyproc plasterboard company
• Novo Nordisk biotechnology company

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Coal Power Plant

• Products
• Electricity
• Steam Heat
• Hot Salt Water
• Ash
• Gypsum

• Inputs
• Coal
• Surplus gas from nearby refinery
• Cool Salt Water

http//www.indigodev.com/Kal.html
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Coal Plant Inputs and Outputs
Waste Gas
Coal Power Plant
Gypsum
Excess heat
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Oil Refinery Inputs and Outputs
Fuels
Petroleum
Gas
Oil Refinery
Steam
Sulfur
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Kalundborg, Denmark example of Industrial Ecology
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Industrial Ecology in Kalundborg

• Saves resources
• 30 better utilization of fuel using combined
  heat power than producing separate
• Reduced oil consumption
• 3500 less oil-burning heaters in homes
• Does not drain fresh water supplies
• New source of raw materials
• Gypsum, sulfuric acid, fertilizer, fish farm

http//www.symbiosis.dk
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View of Devens, Massachusetts
Former military base 40 mi west of Boston
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Major Characteristics of Devens Eco-Industrial
Park 1b

• Material, water, and energy flows
• Major material flows (in approximate order of
  volume)
• Corrugated cardboard
• Paper
• Plastic
• metal scrap and chips
• wooden palettes
• machine oil
• These materials are used, discarded, recycled,
  consumed, produced or purchased by the twelve
  companies surveyed.
• Companies at Devens could create closed loop
  material flows for these six major materials.
• Would require recruiting new companies to fill in
  voids
• e.g. there is no company at Devens that
  reprocesses plastic.

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Major Characteristics of Devens Eco-Industrial
Park 1a

• Llinks between existing companies could be
  extended to energy and water flows
• Use wter cascading allows grey water from one
  company to be used by another company, and then
  to be recycled
• Process reduces total water demand
• Similar technique is available for energy use, by
  cascading energy from high quality use (e.g.
  electricity) to low quality use (e.g. heat) ,
  thereby eliminating waste and improving
  efficiency.
• Nearby support
• Within four nearby towns
• there are over 50 manufacturing companies
• 75 producing products from plastic, paper, wood,
  and metal
• These facilities have material flows that could
  be connected into the greater Devens industrial
  ecosystem.

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Major Characteristics of the Devens
Eco-Industrial Park 2

• Material, water, and energy
• Companies within close proximity
• Strong informal ties among plant managers
• Minor retrofitting of existing infrastructure
• One or more strong anchor tenants.

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Redesigning Products

• Human
• Raw material
• Product
• Waste
• Disposal

• Nature
• Raw material
• Product
• Waste
• Waste Resource
• Reuse
• Recycle

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The Problem with E-waste

• No paper no waste???

Cell Phones
Circuit Boards
http//www.chrisjordan.com/
Monitors
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E-waste Reality

• Two million tons of E-waste thrown away in the
  U.S. every year.
• Only 4 of the total volume of municipal solid
  waste, but 75 of the hazardous material in that
  waste (e.g. lead, cadmium, mercury).
• Computers lose value faster than any other
  manufactured product in history.
• Only 10 of old computers are recycled
• Over 50 of American households have an old PC in
  their closet.

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Design for Disassembly / Take-Back Programs /
Cradle-to-Cradle

• More American electronic companies are taking
  back their products after the consumer is
  through using it
• (HP, Dell and Apple all have computer recycling
  programs).
• For computer recycling programs, consumers
  register for the service on-line
• pay a fee (15-35 is typical), and have computer
  picked up from home
• Fee is offset by rebate toward purchase of new
  computer
• Staples has started a pilot program to take back
  consumer electronics at some stores.

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Design for Disassembly / Take-Back Programs /
Cradle-to-Cradle (cont)

• European Union has gone even further.
• The Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment
  (WEEE) directive took effect in August (2005).
• WEEE requires electronics manufacturers to take
  back their products when customers are finished
  with them
• (no charge to the customer).
• By 2006 the E.U. will ban sales of electronic
  equipment containing lead, mercury, cadmium,
  chromium and brominated flame retardants.

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WEEE Man
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Product as Service

• Interface Carpet (a 1 billion multinational
  flooring company) a pioneer in this field.
• Developed idea of product as service. Customers
  dont buy carpet, they lease flooring service.
• As carpet tiles wear out (heavy traffic areas)
  they are replaced by new tiles. The old tiles are
  recycled and made into new carpet.
• Customer does NOT pay for the carpet or the
  installation, only a monthly fee.

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Product as Service (continued)

• Interface Carpet now produces less carpet but
  employs almost twice as many people.
• In past five years, revenue has more than
  doubled, and profits have tripled.
• Interface has achieved a 90 reduction in raw
  material use by recycling old carpets. They have
  almost completely severed their link to the oil
  well at the front end, and the landfill at the
  back end.

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Local Example Meadville Recycled Carpet

• Carpet Recycling Business Keeps Carpets and Pads
  Out of Landfills
• A Crawford County family is building a business
  on the premise that it makes environmental and
  business sense to recycle old carpet rather than
  send it to landfills. Lloyd "Cliff" Boyer says a
  year ago he was working as a transportation
  coordinator in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a
  company that collected old carpet and carpet
  padding. "The company I was working for was
  collecting five-million pounds of old carpet and
  pad every month," Boyer said. "I was really
  surprised when I discovered that none of it was
  coming out of Pennsylvania, my home state. I saw
  an opportunity to move back home and start up my
  own carpet collection business."
• Boyer was encouraged to take the plunge when he
  visited a carpet recycling plant in Georgia that
  opened just last fall where chemicals are
  extracted from nylon carpeting and re-used to
  make new carpet. That's about the time that he
  discussed his idea with his son, Gregory, and
  daughter, Elizabeth.
• "I was amazed when I saw the numbers from the
  Georgia plant," Elizabeth Boyer-Baker said.
  "Because it takes much more energy to manufacture
  carpet from scratch rather than from recycled
  material, the 200-million pounds of carpet that
  can be processed there annually can save 4.4
  trillion BTUs of energy. In Pennsylvania in 1999,
  42-million pounds of recyclable carpet went to
  landfills, which is a significant waste."
• In July, the Boyer family opened Pennsylvania
  Carpet Pad Recycling in Meadville. Their first
  job was to collect 29,000 pounds of old carpet
  that had covered the library floor at Edinboro
  University.
• "Right now we are mostly operating in
  northwestern Pennsylvania, but we plan to open
  collection sites in other regions of the state,"
  Cliff Boyer said. "We hope to reach anyone who is
  an end user of nylon carpet, from institutions
  and contractors to private homeowners. We expect
  we will be very busy this spring when
  municipalities have spring cleanups. It's much
  cheaper to have us pick up old carpeting than it
  is for municipalities to landfill it."
• Pennsylvania Carpet Pad Recycling also accepts
  carpet drop off at its Meadville location for a
  minimal service charge.

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The Future of IE
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Outcomes of a Shift to a Product as Service /
Cradle-to-Cradle Economy

• Focus placed SERVICE, not PRODUCT
• Forces changes in the way both customers and
  businesses perceive their product.
• Emphasis placed on durability over built-in
  obsolescence.
• Manufacturers will want a product to last as long
  as possible.
• Products designed for dis-assembly and reuse
• move to MODULAR design (Panasonic TV example).
• Manufacturers forced to adopt cyclic way of
  thinking about production process.
• Reduced extractive and processing activity
  upstream from the consumer
• reduced disposal downstream.
• Employment shift from extraction/disposal
  industries to service, collection and
  re-processing industries.