Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Improvements in resource productivity and envi-
ronmental design are very important. But we can do
much better if we encourage the
resource productivity
revolution.
In their 1999 topic
Natural Capitalism,
Paul
Hawken, Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins contend
that we have the knowledge and technology to greatly
increase resource productivity by getting 75-90% more
work or service from each unit of material resources
we use. To these analysts, the only major obstacles to
such an economic and ecological revolution are laws,
policies, taxes, and subsidies that continue to reward
inefficient resource use and fail to reward efficient re-
source use. There are many fulfilling career choices for
people wanting to become part of the resource produc-
tivity revolution.
being developed on abandoned industrial sites, called
brownfields,
which are cleaned up and redeveloped.
In Europe, at least one-third of all industrial wastes
are sent to waste-material exchanges or clearinghouses
where they are sold or given away as raw materials for
other industries. About one-tenth of the industrial
waste in the United States is sent to such clearing-
houses, a proportion that could be greatly increased.
In addition to eliminating most waste and pollu-
tion, these industrial forms of
biomimicry
provide many
economic benefits for businesses. They reduce the
costs of controlling pollution and complying with pol-
lution regulations. If a company does not add pollu-
tants to the environment, it does not have to worry
about government regulations or being sued because
the wastes harm someone. The company also improves
the health and safety of its workers by reducing their
exposure to toxic and hazardous materials, thereby re-
ducing company health-care insurance costs.
Biomimicry also stimulates companies to come up
with new, environmentally beneficial chemicals, pro-
cesses, and products that can be sold worldwide. Such
companies also have a better image among consumers
based on results rather than public relations campaigns.
In 1975, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing
Company (3M), which makes 60,000 different products
in 100 manufacturing plants, began a Pollution Preven-
tion Pays (3P) program. It redesigned its equipment
and processes, used fewer hazardous raw materials,
identified hazardous chemical outputs (and recycled
or sold them as raw materials to other companies), and
began making more nonpolluting products.
By 1998, 3M's overall waste production was down
by one-third, its air pollutant emissions per unit of
production were 70% lower, and the company had
saved more than $750 million in waste disposal and
material costs. Since 1990, a growing number of com-
panies have adopted similar pollution prevention pro-
grams. See the Guest Essay by Peter Montague on
cleaner production on the website for this chapter.
17-3 THE ECOINDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION AND SELLING
SERVICES INSTEAD OF THINGS
Science: The Ecoindustrial Revolution
We can make industrial manufacturing processes
more sustainable by redesigning them to mimic how
nature deals with wastes.
Growing signs point to an
ecoindustrial revolution
tak-
ing place over the next 50 years. The goal is to make in-
dustrial manufacturing processes cleaner and more
sustainable by redesigning them to mimic how nature
deals with wastes. In nature, the waste outputs of one
organism become the nutrient inputs of another or-
ganism, so that all of the earth's nutrients are endlessly
recycled.
One way we can mimic nature is to recycle and
reuse most chemicals used in industries instead of
dumping them into the environment. Another is to
have industries interact in complex
resource exchange
webs
in which the wastes of one manufacturer become
raw materials for another—similar to food webs in
natural ecosystems (Figure 3-17, p. 48). This is happen-
ing in Kalundborg, Denmark, where an electric power
plant and nearby industries, farms, and homes are col-
laborating to save money and reduce their outputs of
waste and pollution. To do so, they exchange waste
outputs and convert them into resources, as shown in
Figure 17-5.
Economics: Selling Services Instead
of Things
Some businesses can greatly decrease their pollution
and waste by shifting from selling goods to selling the
services the goods provide.
In the mid-1980s, German chemist Michael Braungart
and Swiss industry analyst Walter Stahel indepen-
dently proposed a new economic model that would
provide profits while greatly reducing resource use and
waste. Their idea for more sustainable economies fo-
cuses on shifting from the current
material-flow economy
(Figure 2-12, p. 32) to a
service-flow economy.
Instead of
buying most goods outright, customers would use
eco-
leasing,
renting the
services
that such goods provide.
Review the workings of a rain forest ecosystem and com-
pare it to the industrial ecosystem in Kalundborg at
Environmental ScienceNow.
Today about 20 ecoindustrial parks similar to the
one in Kalundborg operate in various parts of the
world, and more are being built or planned. Some are
