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McDonough and Braungart (2002), in their topic Cradle to Cradle, also adopt a
biomimetic and regenerative approach for the design of products and systems, where
material flows are metabolised and integrated into the industrial/urban system as
a part of the natural one. Therefore, industry and urban environments should
cooperate with Nature. They advocate that society feeds upon only two types of
nutrients: technical that should only include materials with no negative effect on
environment and need to flow back to the industrial system and biological nutrients
that eventually can become part of the soil. The ideas published in Cradle to Cradle
have had a deep influence in the development of Industrial Ecology.
Industrial Ecology analyses the material and energy flows through industrial sys-
tems, with the aim of closing the loops, in a very interdisciplinary way. Eco-design,
eco-e
ciency, industrial symbiosis, life cycle thinking, natural capital restoration,
dematerialisation and decarbonisation are all research fields that fall under its um-
brella
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.
Reflection 2: The pioneering paper devoted to eco-industrial parks is that of
Frosch and Gallopoulos (1989). Perhaps the most widely recognised is that of
Kalundborg
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in Denmark. It provides one of the best examples where the prin-
ciples of industrial ecology and more specifically industrial symbiosis have been
successfully put into practice. According to Lowe and Warren (1996), “the dynam-
ics and principles of ecosystems offer a powerful source of guidance in the design
and management of industrial principles. All industrial applications must function
within the constraints of their local ecosystem and the global biosphere”. Later,
Lowe (1997) stated that: “The unifying concept is that discarded materials, goods
and by-products are turned into saleable materials and products. An integrated
system such as this would need to have strong links with the local municipality,
with materials collected from households in addition to those sourced from local
industry”.
In the authors' opinion, more parks such as that of Kalundborg should be es-
tablished because if Man's industry is to become truly e
cient, it must imitate
Nature. The waste of a certain facility must become the raw material of another
and ultimately the natural surroundings should operate as an active member of the
industrial community. This is the true meaning of industrial symbiosis.
Reflection 3: If products are designed with the aim of recycling them at the
end of their useful life, manufacturers would surely avoid heterogenous mixing of
materials. This is because as seen in Sec. 9.3.1, the energy and effort required to
separate increases exponentially as more ingredients are added. Whilst alloying may
seem to save the use of a given metal via the use of a smaller amount of another
one, it may in some cases provoke a sacrifice of more resources than one would have
used in the first place i.e. in not alloying (see principle 10).
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This is a rapidly growing community supported by the International Society for Industrial
Ecology and the Journal of Industrial Ecology.
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See http : ==symbiosis:dk. Accessed June 2013.
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