Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
many important natural systems and cycles, such as the carbon cycle, oper-
ate on time scales (decades or even centuries) that are considerably beyond
the perceptual and psychological time horizons of people and many insti-
tutions. Much of the political and social concern involving nuclear power,
for example, arises from the fact that some residuals are radioactive for cen-
turies—and thus, must be managed for centuries—and social and techno-
logical systems are not routinely designed to incorporate such long-term
activity.
Finally, it is important to remember that industrial ecology is an integra-
tive, not a reductionist, field. It focuses on a comprehensive, holistic under-
standing of systems rather than the reductionist approach of developing
more and more knowledge about increasingly specific subsystems, and, as
table 1 illustrates, cuts across a number of disciplines in doing so.The West-
ern scientific paradigm is, of course, highly reductionist, so it is not surpris-
ing that this facet of industrial ecology has a number of implications. For
example, some scientists tend to view any approach which is not reduc-
tionist as lacking in scientific rigor or quality. More practically, the Western
scientific edifice, from funding institutions to peer review systems to the
organization of academic institutions, is not structured to support integra-
tive disciplines, posing a substantial and very real barrier to the development
of such fields. These barriers are especially strong between social science
disciplines, which study human systems, and the natural sciences (with
engineering somewhat in the middle), which makes collaboration in the
field of industrial ecology even more difficult.
PRINCIPLES OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY
Although industrial ecology is a nascent field, a number of relevant princi-
ples have already been developed. Several of the most significant of these
are listed below.Though these are phrased in terms of a manufactured arti-
cle, it is relatively easy to develop analogous principles for other types of
products or services, such as food, fiber, infrastructure, and the built envi-
ronment generally. Services tend to be more complicated: although they use
material platforms, much of their value derives from their economic and
cultural context and is thus more difficult to evaluate.
1. Products, processes, services, and operations should be designed to pro-
duce residuals but not waste.
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