480428S WASTE MINIMIZATION – RESOURCES USE OPTIMIZATION

Exam material for the post-graduate course

organized for the Finnish Graduate School in Environmental Science and Technology
University of Oulu, 3.-7.4.2006

Eva Pongrácz
University of Oulu
Department of Process and Environmental Engineering
Heat and Mass Transfer Process Laboratory

If you print out this paper, please remember to print double sided to save paper! Thanks: E.P.
Contents

1 The history of waste management ...............................................................................................4

1.1 Sources of waste...................................................................................................................5
1.2 Hidden flows ........................................................................................................................6
1.3 Decoupling ...........................................................................................................................6
2 Material use intensity ...................................................................................................................7
2.1 Development of new materials ............................................................................................8
2.2 Constructing a Material Century..........................................................................................8
2.3 The birth of mass production ...............................................................................................9
2.4 The role of military in materials innovation ......................................................................10
3 The ecological footprint of a society..........................................................................................10
3.1 The Shadow Side of Consumption ....................................................................................12
4 Important milestones in raising environmental awareness ........................................................13
5 The EU policy on environment..................................................................................................15
5.1 Waste legislation in the European Union...........................................................................15
5.2 Waste legislation in Finland...............................................................................................17
5.3 Relevant definitions in legislation......................................................................................18
5.4 The problems with the definition of waste.........................................................................19
5.5 Re-defining waste ..............................................................................................................19
5.6 Defining non-waste ............................................................................................................21
5.7 Can every waste be turned into non-waste?.......................................................................21
5.8 Re-defining waste management .........................................................................................22
5.9 The role of waste minimisation..........................................................................................22
5.9.1 Prevent creating things with no Purpose....................................................................22
5.9.2 Prevent creating things with a single finite Purpose ..................................................23
5.9.3 Prevent creating things that cease performing ...........................................................23
5.9.4 Preventing owners from failing use things for their Purpose.....................................23
6 The waste management hierarchy..............................................................................................24
6.1 Waste prevention................................................................................................................25
6.1.1 Strict avoidance..........................................................................................................25
6.1.2 Reduction at source....................................................................................................26
6.1.3 Waste prevention measures........................................................................................26
6.2 Waste minimization ...........................................................................................................27
6.3 Re-use.................................................................................................................................27
6.4 Recycling ...........................................................................................................................28
6.4.1 The problem with recycling .......................................................................................28
6.5 Recovery ............................................................................................................................28
6.6 Disposal..............................................................................................................................29
7 Industrial metabolism and its importance to waste minimization..............................................29
7.1 Entropy...............................................................................................................................30
7.2 Measures of Industrial Metabolism....................................................................................31
7.3 Policy Implications of the Industrial Metabolism Perspective ..........................................32
8 Strategic waste prevention .........................................................................................................33
8.1 Links to other concepts ......................................................................................................34
8.1.1 Eco-efficiency (E2). ...................................................................................................34
8.1.2 Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). ................................................34
8.1.3 Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). .................................................................34
8.1.4 Integrated Product Policy (IPP). ................................................................................34
8.1.5 Integrated Resources Management ............................................................................35

2
 8.1.6 Resources use optimization........................................................................................35
9 Tools of resources use optimization...........................................................................................36
9.1 Industrial Ecology ..............................................................................................................36
9.2 Dematerialization ...............................................................................................................37
9.2.1 Carbon nanotubes, the ultimate champions of dematerialization (Wikipedia)..........37
9.2.2 Constraints to dematerialization.................................................................................38
9.2.3 Dematerialization through service .............................................................................40
9.3 Decarbonization .................................................................................................................40
9.3.1 Geothermal Energy (Source: Geothermal Education Office) ....................................41
9.3.2 Solar energy (Source: EERE) ....................................................................................41
9.3.3 Energy efficiency .......................................................................................................42
9.4 Design for the Environment (DFE)....................................................................................43
9.5 Cradle-to-cradle design (Source: McDonough and Braungart 2002) ................................44
10 Sustainable products and production (Source: Lowell Center for Sustainable Production)..45
10.1 Principles of Sustainable Production .................................................................................45
11 Cleaner production.................................................................................................................46
11.1 Pollution prevention...........................................................................................................47
Summary ............................................................................................................................................47
References..........................................................................................................................................48

3
1 The history of waste management
Waste management as a government activity has existed in most OECD countries since the early
part of the 20th century (Figure 2). Governmental action, which began at the local level, was largely
a response to the laissez-faire (a French phrase meaning “let do”) disposal of all types of wastes
into the urban environment. Hygiene and public health were the main drivers for government
intervention. (Vancini 2000.)

Figure 1 Evolution of the Waste Issue: Conceptual Overview (Jackson 1991).

The practice of turning by-products into the valuable inputs of another industry is as ancient as
economic development. For thousands of such illustrations , one can look at the lengthy turn of the
20th century books that cover the most significant industrial activities of their days (Desrochers
2002):
− Waste products and Undeveloped Substances: Hints, for Enterprise in Neglected Fields
(Simmonds 1862)
− Waste products and Undeveloped Substances: Synopsis of Progress during the last Quarter of
Century (Simmonds 1867)

One can also look at a list of numerous book-length treatments of specific cases. Here is a short
sampling (Desrochers 2002):
− A great problem solved: How to utilize waste heat from Chimneys (Silver 1987)
− Utilization of waste oranges (Cruess 1914)
− Utilization of waste tomato skins an seeds (Rabak 1917)
− Recovery and re-manufacture of waste paper (Strachan 1918)
− Utilization of waste sulphate liquor (Johnsen 1919)
− Recovering of precious metals from waste liquid residues (Gee 1920)

Numerous other illustrations can also be found in the various publications put out from 1905
onward by the Atlas Publishing Company, the most prominent of which was the Waste Trade
Journal.

4
1.1 Sources of waste
Waste represents an enormous loss of resources both in the form of materials and energy. Indeed,
quantities of waste can be seen as an indicator of the material efficiency of society. It is difficult to
state accurately how much waste is being generated on the whole in Europe. There are many
reasons for this. For example, the definitions of “waste” and estimation techniques are not the same
across different countries, or even across time within the same countries. Also, overlaps between
different classes of wastes (e.g., industrial and hazardous) introduce further sources of uncertainty
in any estimates. Nevertheless, in approximate terms it can be stated that around 2 billion tonnes of
waste is generated in EU-15 every year. The data available by sector are subject to uncertainties but
Eurostat has estimated that almost a third of the total waste comes from agriculture and forestry and
broadly the same amount from construction and demolition. A similar amount is added by the
mining and quarrying and the manufacturing sectors. Figure 2 illustrates the waste generation by
sector in the EU.

Figure 2 Estimated total annual waste generation in the EU-15 by sector

In Finland, it is estimated that the annual waste generation amounts to some 65 million tonnes.
Waste statistics cover all waste materials starting with primary production, except logging residues
left in the forest. Figure 3 illustrates waste generation for each sector. (The data originate from the
pages of the Ministry of Environment http.www.ymparisto.fi) The figure is not conclusive and
contains approximate data.

Solid waste is also increasingly produced as an attempt to solve other environmental problems such
as water and air pollution. Some of these wastes give rise to new problems – examples include
sewage sludge and residues from waste management facilities; for instance cleaning of flue gases
from waste incineration.

While total waste quantities are a measure of resource loss, the environmental impact of waste
cannot be analysed by looking at quantity alone. Dangerous substances in waste, even in small
quantities, can have a very negative impact on the environment. The relative environmental impact
of waste is related to both the quantity and the degree of hazard associated with it. There are,
therefore, two aspects to waste generation: quantitative, i.e. how much is generated, and qualitative,
i.e. the degree of hazard.

5
 Manufacturing
Agriculture
12 000 000
20 000 000 Energy
1 500 000

MSW
2 400 000

Construction
1 400 000
Municipal
sludge
150 000

Mining
25 000 000

Figure 3 Wastes in 2003. Source: Ministry of Environment (http://www.ymparisto.fi)

1.2 Hidden flows

Bringing products to the market place relies on a sophisticated chain of activities that extends from
extraction and production to distribution and consumption. Each and every activity that precedes the
market introduction of products is associated with waste generation. Hidden flows are those
portions of overall material requirements supporting an economy that never actually enter the
market economy; in particular hidden flows refer to the natural resource use that occurs when
providing commodities for the market-place, such as deriving from mining, forestry, earth moving,
and other sources. (Vancini 2000) It has been estimated that “hidden flows” account for as much as
75% of the total materials required by OECD countries (WRI et al. 1997).

Figure 4 Life-cycle of waste generation (Vancini 2000)

Figure 4 portrays how waste generation is linked to the life-cycle of products and materials. The
“cradle-to-grave” linkages shown in the figure are merely illustrative of where wastes arise during
economic processes. Other waste streams may exist that are not shown.

1.3 Decoupling
"Decoupling" is one of the key goals of policies related to management and use of resources. As a
technical term, decoupling means that the growth rate of environmental impacts is less than that of a

6
given economic driving force (e.g. GDP) over a certain period. Relative decoupling occurs when
environmental impact increases, but at a slower rate than the underlying economic driver. Absolute
decoupling occurs when environmental impact decreases while the economy grows.

The recently published Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources aims at
reducing the negative environmental impacts of resource use by decoupling economic growth and
environment impacts. Given current levels of economic growth, the Strategy recognises that it is
likely that two distinct decoupling mechanisms will be required in combination to achieve absolute
decoupling of environmental impact from GDP. These two mechanisms are, firstly, the decoupling
of resource use from economic growth, and secondly, the decoupling of environmental impact from
unit resource use.

With respect to the first decoupling mechanism, Europe has achieved at least partial decoupling of
resource use from economic growth. In many EU countries, the economy in recent years has been
growing at a faster rate than resource use. The EU economy grew by almost 50 % since the 1980s,
while the use of energy and renewable and non-renewable resources remained fairly constant. In
other words resource productivity has grown by 50% over the same period. The last decades have,
therefore, seen at least a relative decoupling of resource and energy consumption from economic
growth. However, this factor on its own has not led to an absolute decoupling of environmental
impact from economic growth. The second decoupling mechanism, decoupling environmental
impact from unit resource use, is much more difficult to measure and monitor. Increased use of end-
of-pipe technologies can reduce environmental pressures resulting from unit resource use. However,
it is rare that there is a concrete and linear relationship between environmental pressures and
resulting environmental impacts. It is, therefore, difficult to estimate aggregated environmental
impacts accruing over Europe as a whole from a given total quantity of emissions. The level of
resource use in Europe, and hence the likely magnitude of its environmental impact, is high
compared to global averages.

2 Material use intensity

Imagine a truck delivering to your house each morning all the materials you use in a day, except
food and fuel. Piled at the front door are: the wood in your newspaper the chemicals in your
shampoo and the plastic in your grocery bags, metals in your appliances and your car –just that
day’s share of those items' total lives – are also included, as is your daily fraction of shared
materials, such as the stone and gravel in your office walls and in the streets you stroll. At the base
of the pile are materials you never see: the nitrogen and potash used to grow your food, and the
earth and rock under which your metals and minerals were once buried.

For a citizen of a developed country, this daily delivery would be about 100 kg. But tomorrow,
another 100 kg arrive, and the next day, another. By month's end, you have used three tons of
material, and over the year, 36 tons. And millions of people are doing the same thing, every day.
Consumption of metal, glass, wood, cement, and chemicals in industrial countries since 1900 is
unprecedented, having grown 18-fold. These huge flows are also more complex and toxic than ever.
Today's stock of materials draws from all 92 naturally occurring elements in the periodic table,
compared with the 20 or so in use at the turn of the century. This larger range of choices enabled
scientists to move beyond classic building blocks – wood, ceramics, and metals – as they developed
new materials. Simple materials like silicon – essentially sand, the most common element in the
Earth’s crust – are the central ingredient in complex products like computer chips. Impressive as
they are, improving many aspects of human life, the new materials are also often toxic and
frequently resisted re-absorption into the natural environment at the end of their useful lives.
Because industrial economies were not built for recycling, massive materials use in the 20th century

7
also generated huge flows of waste. In modern economies, the bulk of waste is invisible to most of
us: mining slurry, factory effluent, smokestack emissions, and product trimmings are several times
greater in quantity than the garbage collected from our homes and offices. (Gardner & Sampat
1998)

2.1 Development of new materials

Modern chemistry introduced new synthetic chemicals, often with unknown consequences, into the
remotest corners of the world. In 1995, scientists studying the global reach of organochlorine
pesticides reported that almost all of the ones they studied were present on a global scale.
Researchers looking for a control population of humans free of chemical contamination turned to
the native peoples of the Canadian Arctic, only to find that they carried chemical contaminants at
higher levels than inhabitants of St. Lawrence, Canada, the original focus of the research.
Chemicals had reached the indigenous people through wind, water, and their food supply. Similarly,
toxic industrial chemicals were reported found in 1998 in the tissue of whales that feed at great
depths in the Atlantic Ocean in feeding grounds that were presumed to be clean. Part of the reason
for this worrying development is that many chemicals cannot be recaptured once emitted to the
environment. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), for instance, which were long used as refrigerants and
solvents are implicated in the decay of stratospheric ozone. A large share of pesticides used in
agriculture – roughly 85-90 % – never reach their targets, dispersing instead through air, soil, and
water and sometimes settling in the fatty tissues of animals and people. Many synthetic chemicals
are not just widespread, but long-lived. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including those used in
electrical wiring or pesticides, remain active in the environment long after their original purpose is
served. Because they are slow to degrade, POPs accumulate in fatty tissues as they are passed up
the food chain. (Gardner & Sampat 1998.)

2.2 Constructing a Material Century

The intensive use of materials in this century has deep historical roots. Since the Industrial
Revolution, advances in technology and changes in society and in business practices have interacted
to build economies that could extract, process, consume, and dispose of tremendous quantities of
materials. Although the roots of these trends extend back centuries, most have matured only in the
last 100 years.

The case of iron, the emblematic material of the Industrial Revolution, illustrates how technological
advances fed materials use. In 1879, a British clerk and his chemist cousin invented a process for
making high-quality steel – a harder and more durable alloy of iron-from any grade of iron ore,
eliminating the need for phosphorus-free ore. This innovation cut steelmaking costs by some 80-90
percent, which in turn drove demand skyward: between 1870 and 1913, iron ore production in
Britain, Germany, and France multiplied 83-fold. Further innovations and robust demand led to a
six- fold increase in world production between 1913 and 1995. Today, iron and steel account for 85
percent of world metals, and a tenth, by weight, of world materials production.

As richer ores were depleted, new extractive technologies made it possible to mine metal from
relatively poor lodes, a practice known as “low-grading”. In 1900, it was not feasible to extract
copper, for example, from ore that contained less than 3 percent of the metal. But technological
advances have since lowered the extraction threshold to less than 0.5 percent, increasing the number
of sites where mining is viable, and greatly expanding the quantity of ore needed to extract the same
amount of copper. As world copper production grew 22-fold over the century, in step with rising
demand for automotive and electrical uses, waste production grew 73-fold. Likewise, modern

8
logging and mining equipment have made it possible to reduce tracts of forest into sawn lumber in a
matter of hours, or to shear off entire mountaintops on order to reach mineral deposits.

Meanwhile, transportation and energy developments also greased the wheels of the materials boom.
With the expansion of roads, canals, railways, and aviation networks, it became easier to haul ever-
greater quantities of raw materials to factories and markets. Completion of the Canadian Pacific
Railway in 1905, for instance, laid open the country's rich western provinces to mineral
exploitation, while locomotives later helped empty Liberian mines of iron ore for European
markets. Over the century, the availability of cheap oil – a better-performing fuel than coal or wood
– made materials production more economical than ever. The powerful combination of declining
costs for energy and raw materials fuelled expansion in industrial scale and kept the cycle of
exploration and production in constant motion. (Gardner & Sampat 1998.)

2.3 The birth of mass production

Inspired by the use of standard, inter-changeable parts to facilitate large-scale musket production in
the early nineteenth century, Henry Ford adopted the concept of mass production in his automobile
factories. Ford's moving assembly line and standardised components slashed production time per
chassis from 12.5 hours in 1913 to 1.5 hours in 1914. Costs also fell: a Ford Model T cost $600 in
1912 but just $265 in 1923, bringing car ownership within reach of many more consumers. And
Ford’s total out- put jumped from 4 million cars in 1920 to 12 million in 1925, accounting for about
half of all automobiles made in the world at the time. Soon manufacturers of refrigerators, radios,
and other consumer goods adopted these mass production principles with similar results.

As the scale of production ballooned, demographic shifts and new business strategies created a
market to match it. The U.S. and European labour forces became increasingly urbanised, middle-
class, and salaried in the first third of the century, characteristics that facilitated the creation of a
consumer class. Material affluence steadily became more accessible to the average individual.
Business initiatives encouraged and capitalised on these trends, with Henry Ford once again a
leader. In 1914, Ford introduced a daily wage of five dollars – more than twice the going rate –
thereby augmenting his workers’ spending power. He also reduced working hours, believing, in the
words of one analyst that “an increase in leisure time would support an increase in consumer
spending, not least on automobiles and automobile travel”. Other employers loudly opposed shorter
workdays but conceded increases in pay for the same reason Ford did: to prime the pump of
consumer spending.

Prospering workers and their families quickly became the targets of sophisticated marketing efforts.
Department stores and mail order catalogues funnelled a wealth of goods to the consumer, and
consumer credit made those goods affordable: by the end of the 1920s, about 60 percent of cars,
radios, and furniture were being purchased on credit. Other clever strategies were used to boost
sales too: in the 1920s, General Motors introduced annual model changes for its cars, playing on
consumers' desires for social status and novelty. The strategy succeeded: by 1927, when the
industry was still in its infancy, replacement purchases of cars outnumbered first-time purchases.
Meanwhile, advertisers used insights from the new field of psychology to ensure that consumers
were "never satisfied" and linked the consumer's identity to products. Recognising the power of
advertising to influence purchasing decisions, companies expanded their budgets for promotion.
Global advertising expenditure surged over the century, reaching $435 billion in 1996. As people in
developing countries have prospered in recent years, advertising spending there has grown rapidly:
by more than 1,000 percent in China between 1986 and 1996, some 600 percent in Indonesia, and
over 300 percent in Malaysia and Thailand. (Gardner & Sampat 1998.)

9
2.4 The role of military in materials innovation
More than 100,000 new chemical compounds have been developed since the 1930s, many of them
for use during World War II, boosting synthetic chemicals production 1,000-fold in the last 60 years
in the United States alone. Today, these substances form the primary ingredients in chemical
pesticides, refrigerants, insulation, and industrial solvents.

The military played a role in materials innovation: the B-2 Stealth bomber alone spurred the
development of more than 900 new materials. Aluminium smelting, a very energy- intensive
practice, was subsidised to produce large quantities of the metal for use in tanks, bombers, and
fighter planes during World War II. Its use spread quickly to consumer products after the war, even
to low-value household items like soda cans, boosting aluminium production 3,000-fold in this
century. Agricultural chemicals, like wartime hardware, were in part the products of military
research and experience. The pesticide DDT was originally used to combat head lice among U.S.
troops and to kill malaria-bearing mosquitoes during World War II. Ammonia, the base material for
fertiliser, was first produced to supply Germany with explosives during World War I. As a
consequence of agricultural researchers' promoting the “Green Revolution” during the 1950s and
1960s, world fertiliser use grew from 14 million tons in 1950 to 129 million in 1996.

New materials often replaced traditional ones – plastic frequently supplanted metal, for example –
leading to lighter products. But material savings from "lightweighting" were nearly always offset by
increased consumption, especially as military suppliers turned their energies to consumer goods
after World War II. For instance, global ownership of cars grew 10- fold between 1950 and 1997.
Cars are an especially materials-intensive product, consuming a full third of U.S. iron and steel, a
fifth of its aluminium, and two thirds of its lead and rubber.

Automobile use was facilitated by – and spurred – the expansion of roads, houses, and other
infrastructure after mid-century. This construction boom prompted an eight-fold increase in global
cement production between 1957 and 1995, and a tripling of asphalt output world-wide since 1950.
One third of this asphalt was poured into the giant U.S. network of interstate highways. Where this
infrastructure supported low- rather than high-density development, as in U.S. suburbs, materials
demand shot up, as far more sewers, bridges, building foundations, houses, and telephone cables
were needed to service a given number of people. (Gardner & Sampat 1998.)

3 The ecological footprint of a society

There is the waste we see and then there is the waste we don't see. Everything is made from
something – oil, wood, minerals, or natural gas – and this creates a hidden history of waste.
Germans call this a product's ‘environmental rucksack.’ For instance, the amount of waste
generated to make a semiconductor chip is over 100,000 times its weight; that of a laptop computer,
close to 4,000 times its weight. One ton of paper requires the use of 98 tons of various resources.

In the early 1990s, researchers at the University of British Columbia began to calculate the amount
of land needed to sustainably supply national populations with resources (including imported ones),
and the amount needed to absorb their wastes. They dubbed this combined area the “ecological
footprint” of a population. In countries as different as the United States and Mexico, the footprint is
larger than the nation’s entire land mass, because of a net dependence on imports, or because the
area needed to absorb wastes sustainably is larger than the area actually used. Sustaining the whole
world at an American or Canadian level of resource use would require the land area of three Earths.
Materials use strongly influences the size of a population's footprint: in the U.S. case, materials are
conservatively estimated to account for more than a fifth of the total footprint. (Fossil fuel use and
food production are other major components.)

10
Mineral and metals extraction also leaves a lasting and damaging environmental footprint. Mining
requires removing from the earth both metal-bearing rock, called ore, and “overburden”, the dirt
and rock that covers the ore. Very little of this material is used-for example, on average, some 110
tons of overburden earth and an equal amount of ore are excavated to produce just a ton of copper
(See Table 1).

Table 1 World ore and waste production for selected metals, 1995 (Garnder and Sampat 1998)
Metal ore mined (million tons) % that becomes waste
Iron 25503 60
Copper 11026 99
Gold1 7235 99.99
Zinc 1267 99.95
Lead 1077 97.5
Aluminium 856 70
Manganese 745 70
Nickel 387 97.5
Tin 195 99
Tungsten 125 99.75

Not surprisingly, the total quantities of waste generated are enormous: Canada's mining wastes are
58 times greater than its urban refuse. Few newlyweds would guess that their two gold wedding
rings were responsible for six tons of waste at a mining site in Nevada or Kyrgyzstan. These mind-
boggling movements of material now exceed those caused by natural systems: mining alone strips
more of the Earth's surface each year than natural erosion by rivers does. (Gardner & Sampat 1998.)
Additional observations on the global dimensions of the waste burden can also be made (Table 2).

Table 2 Global Dimensions of the Waste Burden (Vancini 2000)

Factor Observation
Population By 2050 the global population is projected to be 50% larger than today (i.e., 9
billion people), and 95% of that growth is expected to occur in developing countries
(Sewell and Morrison 1999).
Consumption Consumers in certain rapidly expanding non-OECD economies are emulating the
ecologically challenging consumption patterns of consumers in OECD countries.
Affluence Some of the highest GDP growth rates in the world are taking place in countries
outside the OECD, such as China, India, Brazil, and Indonesia. (OECD1997b).
Technology The World Bank reports that “massive levels” of industrial investment will occur in
developing countries (Hanrahan 1995). In principle, “leap-frogging” the dirty
technologies of the past may be possible because many developing countries have
fewer sunken costs in older “eco-unfriendly” technologies (Andrews and Socolow
1999).
Impact? A five-fold increase in global waste generation is possible by 2025 (CSD 1997).

Sustainable development is based on principles such as responsible use of natural resources and
protection of the environment. De-linking of waste generation from economic activity has a key
role in helping to meet the objectives of reduced waste generation. Waste production is influenced
both by how efficiently we use resources in production, and the quantity of goods we produce and
consume.

1
1997 data

11
3.1 The Shadow Side of Consumption
Mines use toxic chemicals, including cyanide, mercury, and sulphuric acid, to separate metal from
ore. Tailings, the chemical-laced ore that remains once the metal is separated, are often dumped
directly into lakes or rivers, with devastating consequences. In February 2000, Hungary experienced
Europe’s worst ecological disaster since Chernbobyl, when the reservoir wall at Romania’s Baia
Mare gold mine collapsed, and 100 000 m3 of cyanide used to extract gold was released into
Hungary’s Tisza river, killing virtually all life in. Not even bacteria survived.

Industrial activity the last century has released millions of tons of metals into the environment.
Global industrial emissions of lead, for example, now exceed natural rates by a factor of 27. The
impacts of metals emissions are grave: hundreds of thousands of hectares of Russian forest have
been poisoned by emissions from industrial plants; pollution from the Norilsk nickel plant alone has
killed 300.000 hectares. Exposure to mercury, which is widely used by miners in the Amazon Basin
and West Africa increases cancer risk and can damage vital organs and nervous systems. And lead,
a neurotoxin, stunts children’s cognitive development.

Modern chemistry introduced new synthetic chemicals, often with unknown consequences, into the
remotest corners of the world. In 1995, scientists studying the global reach of organochlorine
pesticides reported that almost all of the ones they studied were “ubiquitous on a global scale”.
Other evidence supports this conclusion: researchers looking for a control population of humans
free of chemical contamination turned to the native peoples of the Canadian Arctic, only to find that
they carried chemical contaminants at higher levels than inhabitants of St. Lawrence, Canada, the
original focus of the research. Chemicals had reached the indigenous people through wind, water,
and their food supply. Similarly, toxic industrial chemicals were reported found in 1998 in the
tissue of whales that feed at great depths in the Atlantic Ocean in feeding grounds that were
presumed to be clean.

Part of the reason for this worrying development is that many chemicals cannot be recaptured once
emitted to the environment. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), for instance, which were long used as
refrigerants and solvents are implicated in the decay of stratospheric ozone. A large share of
pesticides used in agriculture – roughly 85-90 percent – never reach their targets, dispersing instead
through air, soil, and water and sometimes settling in the fatty tissues of animals and people.

Many synthetic chemicals are not just ubiquitous but long-lived. Persistent organic pollutants
(POPs), including those used in electrical wiring or pesticides, remain active in the environment
long after their original purpose is served. Because they are slow to degrade, POPs accumulate in
fatty tissues as they are passed up the food chain. Some have been shown to disrupt endocrine and
reproductive systems – implicated in miniature genitals in Florida alligators, and abnormally thin
bird eggshells, for example-often a generation or more after exposure. The delay in the appearance
of health effects caused by POPs raises questions about the wisdom of depending on tens of
thousands of newly synthesised chemicals whose effects are poorly understood.

The long list of unknowns concerning POPs is just a small indication of our chemical ignorance.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences reports that insufficient information exists for even a
partial health assessment of 95 percent of chemicals in the environment. If information is lacking on
thousands of individual chemicals, it is almost non-existent regarding how chemicals interact with
each other, or how they work over the long term, or on different segments of the population. And
even if this scientific information were available, the actual use of chemicals by industry might
remain hidden. (Gardner & Sampat 1998.)

12
4 Important milestones in raising environmental awareness
Rachel Carson: Silent Spring (1962)
A book on the chemical poisoning of the environment by unregulated use of pesticides and
herbicides - especially DDT - in "agriculture control" farming. Widespread use of these chemicals
destroyed wildlife habitats and threatened human communities. When Silent Spring was published,
Carson was viciously attacked. Huge sums of money were spent to discredit her. She was called "an
ignorant and hysterical woman who wanted to turn the earth over to the insects." While the
scientific methods she used were not impeccable, her message about the environment as an
interrelated organic system struck a popular nerve. The smear campaign backfired. Silent Spring
sparked a revolution in government environmental policy and became instrumental in creating a
new ecological consciousness.

Meadows et al.: The Limits to Growth (1972)

The authors had been commissioned by The Club of Rome, an international group of distinguished
businessmen, statesmen, and scientists to undertake a two-year study to investigate the long-term
causes and consequences of growth in population, industrial capital, food production, resource
consumption, and pollution. To keep track of these interacting entities and to project their possible
paths into the future they created a computer model called World3.

The results of the study were described for the general public in The Limits to Growth. The book
created a furore. Parliaments and scientific societies debated it. A major oil company sponsored a
series of advertisements criticising it; another set up an annual prize for the best studies expanding
upon it. It was interpreted by many as a prediction of doom, but it was not a prediction at all. It was
not about a preordained future, but about a choice. It contained a warning, but also a message of
promise. The three summary conclusions written in 1972 were:

1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production,
and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached
sometime within the next 100 years. The most probable result will be a sudden and
uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.
2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of ecological and economic
stability that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global equilibrium could be designed
so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied and each person has an
equal opportunity to realize his or her individual human potential.
3. If the world's people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner
they begin working to attain it, the greater will be their chances of success.

(20 years later they published a sequel to the book titled Beyond the Limits.)

The 1972 Stockholm Conference

Acting on a proposal from Sweden, the UN General Assembly in 1968 called for an international
conference to examine "problems of the human environment...and also to identify those aspects of it
that can only, or best be solved through international co-operation and agreement." The UN
Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm in early June 1972. The Stockholm
meeting was the first global conference on the environment, indeed the first world conference to
focus on a single issue.

The Brundtland Report (1987)

Dr Brundtland chaired, starting in 1983, the World Commission on Environment and Development,
which coined the concept of "sustainable development" and made recommendations leading to the

13
Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Brundtland report 1987 defined the concept of
sustainable development as: “Development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own. (Presently Dr Brundtland is the
Director-General of the World Health Organization)

The Rio Summit (1992)

The objective of the Rio Earth Summit, which took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the 4 - 14
June 1992, was to examine the state of the environment and development since the 1972 UN
(United Nations) Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. This summit became
known by a number of different names:
· UNCED - The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
· The Earth Summit
· Rio

The Earth Summit was the largest and probably the most complex conference ever organised by the
UN. It was the largest gathering of heads of state in history, as it was attended by 178 governments
and there were some 120 heads of state at the Summit.
The Earth Summit was unprecedented in bringing together people from all walks of life, cultures,
political systems, and environmental - development experiences.

The purpose of UNCED, was to "elaborate strategies and measures to halt and reverse the effects of
environmental degradation in the context of increased national and international efforts to promote
sustainable and environmentally sound development in all countries." It addressed: "problems that
are planetary in scope that cannot be resolved by traditional diplomacy that pits one region against
the others." The key issues addressed are expressed in the form of 5 documents:
· The Convention on Climate Change
· The Convention on Biological Diversity
· The Statement of Forest Principles
· The Rio Declaration
· Agenda 21

Agenda 21 is a blueprint for sustainable development into the 21st Century. At Rio an undertaking
was given that local councils would produce their own plan - a Local Agenda 21. This would
involve consulting with the community, because it is the people in the area who have the local
knowledge needed to make sensible decisions for their future.

Agenda 21 is a guide for individuals, businesses and governments in making choices for
development that help society and the environment. If we do not tackle the issues it concerns, we all
face higher and higher levels of human suffering and damage to the world we live in. Note how it
goes further than just looking at the environment - social factors are seen as very important as well.

The Kyoto Treaty

On December 11, 1997 an international agreement to combat climate change was negotiated by 171
countries in Kyoto, Japan. As the first legally-binding protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
it is an important first step towards reversing the growing threat of global climate change. The
Treaty adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which is a commitment to cutting greenhouse gas (CO2, CH4,
and NOx) emissions from 1990 levels by 2012. The European Union committed itself to 8% cutting,
USA 7%, and Japan 6%.

14
5 The EU policy on environment
Protection of the environment is one of the major challenges facing Europe. Community action
developed over the years until the Treaty on European Union conferred on it the status of a policy.
The range of environmental instruments available has expanded as environmental policy has
developed. The Community adopted framework legislation providing for a high level of
environmental protection while guaranteeing the operation of the internal market. It has introduced
a financial instrument: the Life Programme, and technical instruments: eco-labelling, the
Community system of environmental management and auditing system for assessment of the effects
of public and private projects on the environment.

The Sixth Environment Action Programme defines the priorities and objectives of Community
environmental policy up to 2010 and beyond, and describes the measures to be taken to help
implement the European Union's sustainable development strategy (Commission of the European
Communities 2001). The programme has been guided by the Fifth Environment Action Programme
(European Council 1998). The Sixth Environment Action Programme focuses on four priority areas
for action: climate change; biodiversity; environment and health; and sustainable management of
resources and wastes. The objective is to ensure that the consumption of renewable and non-
renewable resources does not exceed the carrying capacity of the environment, and to achieve a
decoupling of resource use from economic growth, through significantly improved resource
efficiency and the reduction of waste. With regard to waste, the specific target is to reduce the
quantity going to final disposal by 20% by 2010, and 50% by 2050.

The actions to be undertaken are as follows (Commission of the European Communities 2001):
− The development of a strategy for the sustainable management of resources by laying down
priorities and reducing consumption;
− The taxation of resource use;
− The removal of subsidies that encourage the overuse of resources;
− The integration of resource efficiency considerations into integrated product policy,
eco-labelling schemes, environmental assessment schemes, etc.;
− Establishing a strategy for the recycling of waste;
− The improvement of existing waste management schemes and investment in
quantitative and qualitative prevention;
− The integration of waste prevention into the integrated product policy and the
Community strategy on chemicals.

5.1 Waste legislation in the European Union

To date, European action in the waste field has mainly taken the form of legislation. Other measures
supported by the EC to improve the European waste situation include technical research, recycling
industries, training, awareness-raising actions and exchange of good practices. While these actions
have prevented the situation from becoming even worse than it is today, waste generation is still too
high and is rising annually. For years, there has been too little action on the European waste
problem and inadequate planning for an optimal solution. As far back as 1975, Community
legislation required Member States to develop comprehensive waste management plans, and 25
years on, little has progressed. The situation within the EU regarding waste management continues
to be unsatisfactory. (European Communities 1999.)

Protection of the environment and natural resources has steadily grown since the 1980s. As a result,
a range of measures ranging from legislation, financial instruments, etc. has been undertaken,

15
especially at the European level. There is no blueprint which can be applied in every situation, but
the EU has firm principles upon which its approach to waste management is based. These include
(European Communities 1999):
− Prevention principle – waste production must be minimised and avoided where possible.
− Producer responsibility and polluter pays principle – those who produce the waste or
contaminate the environment should pay the full costs of their actions.
− Precaution principle – we should anticipate potential problems.
− Proximity principle – waste should be disposed of as closely as possible to where it is
produced (the goal of which is to prohibit waste transport to, and disposal in countries
with lower environmental standards).
European institutions have taken a number of steps. The most important regulations are summarised
in Table 3.

Table 3 The most important waste-related regulations in the EU.

Council Directive on Waste The ‘Framework Directive’ on waste, provides definitions of the most
‘Waste Directive’ important concepts, and sets out categories of waste in its Annex I.
(European Council 1991a)

The Regulation on the The regulation sets out controls for the shipment of waste. The penalties
supervision and control of for illegal trafficking are left to member states' responsibility.
transfrontier waste shipments
(European Council 1993)

The Directive on Packaging and
Packaging Waste
‘Packaging Directive’
(European Council 1994)
The EC Directive on Integrated
Pollution Prevention and
Control ‘IPPC Directive’
(European Council 1996)
The Directive sets targets for recovery and recycling and proposes that a
marking scheme for packaging be set up. It requires that 50-65w% of the
packaging waste shall be recovered. Within this, 25-45w% of packaging
materials shall be recycled, with a minimum of 15w% for each material.
The purpose is to achieve integrated prevention and control of pollution
arising from activities listed in Annex 1 of the Directive, through permits
to be issued by the Member States. The Polluting Emissions Register
(PER) inventory is required to be to reported in 2002. The results of the
European PER would be fed into the Integrated Emissions Inventory
(IEI).

The Directive on the Landfilling
of Waste
‘Landfill Directive’
(European Council 1999)
Adopted on April 27, 1999, divides landfills into three classes (landfill
for hazardous, non-hazardous, and inert waste) and provides for the first
time common requirements for all 15 Member States. One significant
element is the requirement of drastic reduction of biodegradable waste
going to landfill: to 75w% by 5 years, 50w% by 8, and 35w% by 15
years.

Directive on End-of-Life Vehicles This Directive of September 18, 2000, prescribes that Member States
(European Council 2000c) should ensure that the last holder and/or owner can deliver the end-of life
vehicle to an authorised treatment facility without any cost as a result of
the vehicle having no or a negative, market value.

Proposal for EC Directives on
Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment and on the restriction
of the use of certain hazardous
substances in electrical and
electronic equipment
(European Council 2001d)
Main areas of the proposal adopted on June 13, 2000, were: separate
collection goals to be met by January 1st, 2006; responsibility for the
treatment and recovery of WEEE is placed on the producer; specific
recovery rates are to be met by January 1st, 2006; Hazardous Substances
proposal requires the substitution of Pb, Hg, Cd, Cr VI, and certain flame
retardants (PBB, PBDE) by January 1st, 2008.

16
There is a range of new regulations that have been proposed recently, some examples listed below:
− Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive of 11 March 2004 on the type-
approval of motor vehicles with regard to their re-usability, recyclability and recoverability
and amending Council Directive 70/156/EEC.
− Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and Council on Shipments of Waste
COM(2003)379
− Proposal for a Directive European Parliament and Council on the management of waste from
the extractive industries COM(2003) 319
− Proposal for a Directive European Parliament and Council on establishing a framework for
the setting of Eco-design requirements for Energy- Using Products and amending Council
Directive 92/42/EEC COM(2003)453

In addition, noteworthy are the various green and white paper at the EU. Green papers are
discussion papers published by the Commission on a specific policy area. An examples is:
− Green Paper on Energy Efficiency or Doing More With Less COM(2005) 265, June 2005

White papers are documents containing proposals for Community action in a specific area, such as:
− White Paper on the Strategy for a Future Chemicals Policy COM(2001) 88, February 2001:
The Commission proposes that existing and new substances should in the future, following
the phasing in of existing substances until 2012, be subject to the same procedure under a
single system. The proposed system is called REACH, for the Registration, Evaluation and
Authorisation of CHemicals.
− White paper on Food Safety COM(1999) 719, January 2000

Thematic strategies
The European Commission published on 21 December 2005 a Proposal for a Directive of the
European Parliament and the Council on Waste (COM(2005) 667 final) This strategy is one of the
seven thematic strategies programmed by the 6th Environmental Action Plan. This long-term
strategy aims to help Europe become a recycling society that seeks to avoid waste and uses waste as
a resource. The Commission also published 2 thematic strategies on the same day:
− Thematic strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste COM(2005)666
o As a first step, the Commission proposes revising the 1975 Waste Framework
Directive to set recycling standards and to include a waste prevention strategy. This
revision will also merge, streamline and clarify legislation, contributing to better
regulation
− Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources COM(2005)670
o The objective of the Thematic Strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources is
to reduce the environmental impacts associated with resource use and to do so in a
growing economy.

5.2 Waste legislation in Finland

The Waste Management Act (Valtioneuvosto 1978), which came into force in 1979, was the first
act in Finland dealing specifically with waste management. After Finland joined the European
Economic Area in 1994, and the European Union in 1995 the waste legislation had to be reformed
to bring it in line with corresponding European Community legislation. The new Waste Act
(Valtioneuvosto 1993a) and Waste Decree (Valtioneuvosto 1993b), which came into force on
January 1st, 1994, implementing the provisions of Council Directive on Waste (European Council
1991a) on hazardous waste, and Council Regulation on the supervision and control of trans-frontier
shipments of waste (European Council 1993).

17
Compared with the earlier Waste Act, the new Act emphasises more preventive measures for
minimising the waste generated and diminishing the harmful properties of waste. The Act also
requires the recovery of waste if this is technically and economically feasible, primarily in the form
of materials and, secondarily, as energy.

As the proposal for the new framework directive waste as well as the thematic strategy on waste
prevention and recycling prescribe obligation for EU Member States to develop national waste
prevention programmes, presently the work is in progress on preparing Finland’s new waste act
(VALTSU), which shall include measures on waste prevention.

5.3 Relevant definitions in legislation

It is agreed, is that common terminology and a definition of waste are needed in order to improve
the efficiency of waste management in the Community. The definitions of Council Directive
91/156/EEC of March 18 1991 amending Directive 75/442/EEC on Waste, Article 1, are collected
in Table 4. The Waste Directive states in its Article 3 (European Council 1991a) that Member
States shall take appropriate measures to encourage:

Firstly: the prevention or reduction of waste production and its harmfulness by:
a) the development of clean technologies more sparing in their use of natural resources;
b) the technical development and marketing of products designed so as to make no contribution or
to make the smallest possible contribution, by the nature of their manufacture, use or final
disposal, to increasing the amount or harmfulness of waste and pollution hazards;
c) the development of appropriate techniques for the final disposal of dangerous substances
contained in waste destined for recovery.

Secondly:
d) the recovery of waste by means of recycling, re-use or reclamation or any other process with a
view to extracting secondary raw materials,
e) or the use of waste as a source of energy.

Table 4 Definitions provided by Council Directive 91/156/EEC on Waste (European Council 1991a).
Waste shall mean any substance or object in the categories set out in Annex I which the holder
discards or intends or is required to discard.
Producer shall mean anyone whose activities produce waste ("original producer") and/or anyone who
carries out pre-processing, mixing or other operations resulting in a change in the nature or
composition of this waste.
Holder shall mean the producer of the waste or the natural or legal person who is in possession of it.
Management shall mean the collection, transport, recovery and disposal of waste, including the
supervision of such operations and after-care of disposal sites.
Disposal shall mean any of the operations provided for in Annex IIA.
Recovery shall mean any of the operations provided for in Annex IIB.
Collection shall mean the gathering, sorting and/or mixing of waste for the purpose of transport.

The proposal for the new framework directive (COM(2005)667 final) includes some new
definitions and amendments to old definitions:
− ‘Waste’ shall mean any substance or object which the holder discards or intends or is required
to discard.
− ‘Re-use’ means any recovery operation by which products or components that have become
waste are used again for the same purpose for which they were conceived

18
 − ‘Recycling’ means the recovery of waste into products, materials or substances whether for
the original or other purposes. It does not include energy recovery.
− ‘Recovery’: Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that all waste
undergoes operations that result in it serving a useful purpose in replacing, whether in the
plant or in the wider economy, other resources which would have been used to fulfil that
function, or in it being prepared for such a use, hereinafter “recovery operations”. They shall
regard as recovery operations at least the operations listed in Annex II
− ‘Disposal’: MS shall regard as disposal operations at least the operations listed in Annex I,
even where the operation has as a secondary consequence the reclamation of substances or
energy

There is a lot of turmoil regarding the proposed definitions, especially with that of re-use, as it
seems to indicate that before you re-use something, by definition it used to be waste first.

5.4 The problems with the definition of waste

The waste regulations within the EU are generally considered to have had, so far, a positive effect
on the environment. Present definitions of waste have created legal disputes in Europe as well as
overseas. It is because a substance, when defined as waste, is often restricted in its transport, sale
and re-use. Industry has voiced serious concerns that definitions may become a barrier to efficient
and sustainable European waste management. Defining a material as waste, or secondary raw
material, bears many consequences on what is permissive or not, what administrative procedures
apply to its transport, export or processing, and what costs will be incurred. When a thing is labelled
as waste, it is going to be handled as waste, thus despite its explicit wish of waste prevention,
implicitly legislation amasses waste.

A large part of the problem comes from the fact that the current definition of waste includes
materials that were long considered by some actors as not being wastes. Different interpretations of
the definition of waste interfere with long-established practices recycling. The consequences are felt
at environmental, economic and even world trade levels. Waste regulation should be in line with the
objectives of European policy, i.e. sustainable development, conservation of natural resources,
environment and public health protection, employment and economic growth.

5.5 Re-defining waste

One could say that waste is just something that we have not yet figured out utilization for. This
would indicate that being waste is a temporary failing that needs to be remedied. Whether an
outcome from an industrial process is considered product or waste depends on if it has been made
for a Purpose. This suggests that waste could be transformed into non-waste by assigning it a
Purpose, that is, find a use for it. Indeed historical evidence shows that the development of waste
utilization is as old as technology itself (Desrochers 2002). Purposeful products can also become
wastes at the end their useful lives. This can happen either because they have fulfilled their purpose
(an empty beer can), or because they are not able to fulfil their purpose anymore due to damage in
structure (a broken tyre), or because their temporal state (an expired battery). Further yet,
consumers are likely to dispose functional things just for the lack of care or attention. Analysing
these reasons of wastes, it has been established that there are four waste classes (Table 5).

19
 2
Table 5 Classes of waste (Pongrácz & Pohjola 1997)

Class 1 Non-wanted things, created not intended, or not avoided, with no Purpose.
Class 2 Things that were given a finite Purpose, thus destined to become useless after fulfilling it.
Class 3 Things with well-defined Purpose, but their Performance ceased being acceptable.
Class 4 Things with well-defined Purpose, and acceptable Performance, but their users failed to
use them for their intended Purpose.

Class 1 are those accidental, unavoidable or concomitant compounds that have not been created
purposefully, but they are concomitant with a purposeful industrial activity. Gaseous emissions
belong to this class. Class 2 contains artefacts that have been created for a specific, however,
temporary Purpose. Upon fulfilling that Purpose, they become waste. Single use products such as
non-refillable packaging non-rechargeable batteries are the major members of this class. Class 3 are
generally artefacts that have been created to be durable, however either their Structure got damaged
in use, or in time their state has been altered, thus they are not able to Perform with respect to their
original Purpose. A broken vase, a clogged filter, or a fused wiring would be examples of such
structural damage. State change can also inhibit further performance; an evaporated solvent an
evaporated solvent would not be as useful as a liquid one. Finally, Class 4 includes discarded things
that have been rendered waste only because their owner has failed to use them. In some cases, the
action is considerate, such as throwing away an old-fashioned piece of clothing or changing a
mobile phone for a trendier one. In other cases, the failure is unwilling; consider the mustard left in
the tube that cannot be squeezed out. Conversely, if too much mustard is squeezed out and the
leftover is flushed down the drain, the failure is use in excess. This class points out the importance
of responsible human action. Based on this taxonomy of waste, the definition for waste was offered
as (Pongrácz and Pohjola 1997):
Def.1 Waste is a man-made thing that has no Purpose; or is not able to perform
with respect to its Purpose.
To some respect, according to this definition waste is in the eye of the beholder, as humans assign
Purpose and humans evaluate Performance. However, this description also allows for the possibility
of the waste being turned into a non-waste, and emphasizes that being ‘waste’ is a temporary failing
that needs to be remedied.

The above waste description explains the reasons why things became waste. The description of
waste as “a thing which the owner failed to use for its intended Purpose,” highlights the fact that it
was because of the wrongful action of the owner why the thing became waste. When we describe
waste emission as “a thing to which its producer has not assigned a Purpose,” we point out the error
of the producer. While a waste of the type: “thing which is not performing in respect to its original
Purpose due to an irreversible structural change” explains the reasons why the thing became waste.

It appears that things become waste either due to a wrongful action of a human, or because of a fault
in the Structure of the thing that deprives it of its functionality. Waste can thus be defined with
reference to humans as (Pongrácz 2002):
Def.2 Waste is a thing that is in the given time and place, in its actual Structure
and State, not useful to its owner, or an output that has no owner and no
Purpose.

2
This taxonomy uses the PSSP™ language, according to which every real thing can be described as on
object with the following necessary and sufficient attributes: Purpose, Structure, State and Performance.

20
This definition points out the dynamic nature of waste: the same thing can be waste or non-waste
for different persons, in different places and different times. Responsible ownership is a central
issue in waste management. Ownership can make and unmake wastes. Legislation recognizes waste
when owners cede their ownership over them. This is of central importance for the reason of
controlling the conditions of abandonment. Recycling is said to be the means of transforming waste
to non-waste (Eurostat 2005), however, representatives of Finnish industry (e.g. Hasenson 2004,
Pekkarinen 2004) would argue that waste regulation sometimes sets barriers when they wish to do
so. It is because defining a material as waste, or secondary raw material, bears many consequences
on what is permissive or not, what administrative procedures apply to its transport, export or
processing, and what costs will be incurred. Clear definitions about the conditions when wastes
cede to be wastes are lacking, therefore, we need to ask next, what is a non-waste?

5.6 Defining non-waste

It is argued that the taxonomy of Table 5, as well as definitions 1 and 2 describe waste without
doubt. It can then be argued that everything outside of these definitions is a non-waste. Whenever
there is an owner who intends to use a thing for a Purpose, or the owner intends to manipulate the
thing to be able to perform with respect to its Purpose, it cannot be considered waste any longer,
since it does then not belong to any of the waste classes. In the process when a waste material is
used to manufacture a new product, it can be said that waste ceases being waste as soon as the
properties of the new product are formed and this product becomes functional with respect to its
Purpose. Non-waste was defined as (Pongrácz 2002):
Def.3 Non-waste is an object which has been assigned a Purpose by its (or a
potential) owner, and this owner will either use it for that Purpose, or by
adjustment of State or Structure, ensure that the object will be able to
perform in respect to the assigned Purpose.
It was suggested that things covered by this definition shall not be considered waste, and be exempt
from regulative restrictions regarding waste.

5.7 Can every waste be turned into non-waste?

Conceptually, wastes of Definition 1 can be turned into non-waste of Definition 3. Naturally, we are
far from the technical capacity and efficacy to actually do this in practice. There may be limitations,
such as the structural damage of a thing of waste Class 3 being non-repairable, or the thing of waste
Class 4 being non-retrievable. However, if there is a possibility, we shall strive towards it. The
conceptual solutions to turn wastes no non-wastes are summarized in Table 6.

Table 6 Turning waste to non-waste (Pongrácz 2002)

Waste class Solution to be assigned

Class 1 Waste to be assigned a Purpose.
Class 2 Waste to be assigned a second Purpose.
Class 3 Waste requires repair of Structure or adjustment of State.
Class 4 Waste requires a new owner who will use it for the intended Purpose, or will assign a
new Purpose.

Even if none of the conceptual schemes presented in Table 2 are applicable, there are no ultimate
wastes. The life cycle of the artefact ends with it becoming a natural thing. When a waste is left to

21
decompose or dissipate in nature, and its properties can no longer be recognised as being an
artefact, it can be argued that it is a natural thing.

5.8 Re-defining waste management

It has been determined that the Purpose of waste management is protection of the environment and
conservation of resources (Pongrácz 2002). This goal is the basis of describing waste management
as follows:
Def. 4 Waste management control of waste-related activities, with the purpose
of resources conservation and environmental protection
Waste-related activities include waste creating processes, waste handling, as well as waste
utilisation. Control of these activities occurs by adjustment of the Purpose of waste, or manipulating
the Structure or State of waste. Waste legislation has been created to enforce the achievement of
this Purpose, by setting goals for waste management, e.g. by fixing recycling rates to be achieved,
setting targets to reduce emissions, prescribing the goal of stabilising waste production at a given
level, or banning the export of certain categories of waste, etc.

We can accept that waste management (collection, transport, recovery and disposal of waste,
including the supervision of such operations and after-care of disposal sites) as defined by the
Waste Directive (91/156/EEC), is the summary of actual activity upon waste. However, sustainable
waste management also involves strategic planning and decision making to determine best action;
prescribing options and assessing their effects and consequences; and choosing the best treatment
option, with taking into consideration legislation. At all times, one shall keep in mind that
conservation of resources and prevention of the contamination of environment can be achieved by
waste management through applying the proper hierarchy: waste prevention first, followed by
recovery and, ultimately, safe disposal.

5.9 The role of waste minimisation

Moving toward waste minimisation requires that the firm commits itself to increasing the
proportion of non-waste leaving the process. the following preventive options can be assigned to the
four classes of waste.

5.9.1 Prevent creating things with no Purpose

When assignation of a new Purpose is not possible, the aim is then to reduce the amount of waste
that is produced with no Purpose. Enhancement of the environmental performance of the production
process shall aim at reducing emissions and/or substituting potentially dangerous compounds to
reduce the toxicity of waste. Design for the Environment (DFE), in particular Design for Safety is
required. Aiming at a process that involves minimal waste production, three options have to be
considered. Firstly, reducing the use of natural resources since mining is a major solid waste
producer. Closed- as well as open-loop recycling can contribute to this end. Secondly, reduction of
energy use, given that generating energy involves waste-creating that can be allocated to the
product. Thirdly, reduce water consumption as wastewater treatment involves sludge production. A
paper on the effectiveness of waste minimisation clubs in reducing the demand for water revealed
that companies were able to reduce water consumption by approximately 30% (Holt et al. 2000).
Enhancing the logistics of the production process can also greatly contribute to a more efficient
production, which in turn contributes to waste reduction.

22
 5.9.2 Prevent creating things with a single finite Purpose
Reduction of waste in this class requires product design enhancement and extending designer
responsibility. The future Purpose of the product when it becomes waste can be planned using DFE
methods, for example, Design for Materials Recyclability, Design for Incineration, or Design for
Disposal. In the case of packaging, especially that of plastics, feedstock recycling is an ideal
utilisation of difficult-to-recycle plastics, since energy recovery also contributes to waste
minimisation by avoiding usage of fossil fuels, as their acquisition also involves waste creation. In
the case of refillable packaging, some economic instruments can also help reduce waste. Monetary
deposits, for example, will motivate consumers to return the waste package.

5.9.3 Prevent creating things that cease performing

Increased functionality of products can postpone its transformation to waste. If the loss of
Performance is only due to a faulty part, changing that part is an option. To that end, Design for
Refurbishment is recommended. When refurbishment is not viable, recovery of the useful
constituent parts is preferred. Design for Disassembly can help achieve this. There is also a need for
legal instruments, i.e., product take-back responsibilities so that the consumer has a possibility to
return a non-functional product (electronic appliances, cars, etc.) to the manufacturer. Another
option is leasing the product instead of selling to the consumer, a practice widespread in the use of
copier machines, and introduced to cars as well. Use of economic instruments, such as deposits is,
again, also recommended.

5.9.4 Preventing owners from failing use things for their Purpose
Enhancing the environmental performance and/or functionality may make the product more
desirable to the owner, or may make it easier to find a new owner. Hence the owner would be less
prone to give up ownership of the product. Use of legal instruments, such as increasing owner
responsibility can prevent uncontrolled abandonment of ownership. In summary, waste
minimisation requires innovative process design and product design as well as the use of economic
and legal instruments. They are listed in Table 7.

Table 7 Instruments for waste minimisation

Process design enhancements
Increase process efficiency,
Substitution of dangerous compounds,
Design for Process Safety,
Minimisation of the use of ‘virgin’ materials,
Minimisation of energy use,
Minimisation of water use.

Product design changes Increase functionality of the product,

Increase the environmental performance of the product,
DFE: Design for Refurbishment/ Disassembly/ Material Recycling/
Incineration/ Disposal, etc.

Economic and legal instrument Deposit/refund systems,

Product take-back responsibility,
Increased owner responsibility.

Remember that the Council Directive on Waste, defines waste management as:
Waste management shall mean collection, transport, recovery and disposal of waste,
including the supervision of such operations and after-care of disposal sites.

This definition of waste management has an “organisational approach”. It is concerned about the
existing amount of waste, trying to minimise the human-waste or environment-waste interface, to

23
minimise potential impact. It must be noted that this approach is very useful and important. It does
not go into the depth of the concept, does not try to explain or clarify the concept, but that is not its
role either. Self-confessedly, the role is to protect human health and the environment. In this
context, ‘the environment’ is to mean the whole of the natural world inhabited by living organisms,
considered vulnerable to pollution. Cheyne and Purdue (1995) argue that waste management is
concerned not only with final disposal of waste but with the whole cycle of waste creation,
transport, storage, treatment and recovery, and does so in order prevent pollution and harm from
pollution taking place. Waste management strategies, therefore, should include a wide range of
policies, such as assignment of liability, duty of care, controls over collection, transport and
disposal and, not the last, reduction and/or elimination of waste.

Semantically, the expression is an interesting use of words. ‘To manage’ is, according to the
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary Online: “to handle or direct with a degree of skill; to work upon or
try to alter for a purpose; to succeed in accomplishing or to direct or carry on business or affairs.”
While ‘management’ is defined as: “judicious use of means to achieve an end.” It appears from
these definitions that management is control of activities, while the expression of ‘waste
management’ semantically suggests that it is control of materials.

Another question raised is, if the aim of management is to achieve an end, what would be that end,
and what then is the aim of waste management? The purpose of waste management is protection of
the environment, human health and natural resources. Waste management shall be understood as a
system, providing medium for making changes in the way people behave with respect to waste.
(Pongrácz & Pohjola 1999a.) It has been concluded that waste management can be understood as:

Definition 5 Waste management is control of waste-related activities with the aim of protecting
the environment and resources conservation.
Waste-related activities include waste-creating processes, waste handling as well as waste
utilisation. Control of these activities occurs based on the considerations prescribed earlier: Purpose
readjustment; Structure and State manipulation. It is important that the main objective of waste
management is, besides waste avoidance, turning wastes into non-wastes and preventing waste from
final disposal, especially of such disposal which does not utilise waste by any means.

6 The waste management hierarchy

The European Council in its Waste Directive of 1991 sets the hierarchy of waste management
options as follows:
1. waste prevention
2. recovery
3. safe disposal

The OECD concluded that, even when conventional environmental and waste policy approaches
have succeeded in attaining their own specific objectives, they have not been sufficient toward
overall waste reduction. OECD-wide recycling has been increasing, but without waste prevention
efforts, a near doubling of municipal waste within the OECD area is expected within the next 20
years. At a workshop in Berlin organised by the OECD in 1996, when looking for a definition of
waste minimization, they defined the elements of waste management hierarchy as seen in Figure 6.
This figure has since been widely accepted as the definition of the waste management hierarchy.

24
 Figure 5 Waste prevention vs. minimization defined by the OECD in 1996

6.1 Waste prevention

The consensus understanding of waste prevention achieved by OECD countries (OECD 1998) can
be broken down into three types of actions:

1. Strict Avoidance
2. Reduction at Source
3. Product Re-use

The first-ever OECD workshop devoted specifically to waste prevention was held in 1999; and a
Reference Manual on strategic waste prevention was published to assist governments with actions
that support increased resource efficiency and sustainable development. (OECD 2000.)

6.1.1 Strict avoidance

Strict Avoidance involves the complete prevention of waste generation by virtual
elimination of hazardous substances or by reducing material or energy intensity in
production, consumption, and distribution.

Examples of strict avoidance include those that address:

• Hazard, such as:
Avoiding and/or substituting materials that are hazardous to humans or to the environment
(e.g., through bans on PCBs and ozone-depleting substances, or virtual elimination of toxic
organochlorines released in bleached pulp mill effluents).
• Quantity, such as:
Avoiding use of materials or stages of production/consumption (e.g., through eliminating
interim packaging for cosmetics and toothpaste, or substitution of continuous casting for
ingot casting at steelworks).

25
 6.1.2 Reduction at source
Reduction at source involves minimising use of toxic or harmful substances and/or
minimising material or energy consumption.

Examples of reduction at source include those that address:

• Hazard, such as:
o Reducing the use of harmful substances in products, in production and sales systems,
and in consumption and disposal systems, and
o Reducing the use of substances that hinder re-use or recycling (e.g. "Post-its” on
paper, use of chlorinated solvents as cleansing agents).
• Quantity, such as:
o Using smaller amounts of resources to provide the same product or service (e.g.
reducing foil thickness, introducing re-use or refill systems, miniaturisation,
resource-orientated purchasing and consumption); and
o Using less resource-dependent construction principles and materials.

6.1.3 Waste prevention measures

The thematic strategy on waste prevention and recycling (COM(2005)666) defines a range of
prevention measures to be applied at different strategic levels. These are:

− Measures that can affect the framework conditions related to the generation of waste
1. The use of planning measures, or other economic instruments affecting the
availability and price of primary resources.
2. The promotion of research and development into the area of achieving cleaner and
less wasteful products and technologies and the dissemination and use of the results of
such research and development.
3. The development of effective and meaningful indicators of the environmental
pressures associated with the generation of waste at all levels, from product
comparisons through action by local authorities to national measures.

− Measures that can affect the design and production phase:

1. The promotion of eco-design
2. The provision of information on waste prevention techniques, facilitating BAT
3. Organise training of competent authorities on waste prevention
4. The inclusion of measures to prevent waste production at installations, inc. waste
prevention assessments or plans.
5. Use of awareness campaigns or the provision of financial, decision making or other
support to businesses.
6. Such measures are likely to be particularly effective aimed at SMEs and work
through established business networks.
7. Use of voluntary agreements, consumer/producer panels or industrial sectors set their
own waste prevention plans
8. The promotion of creditable EMS, inc. ISO 14001.

− Measures that can affect the consumption and use phase

1. Economic instruments such as incentives for clean purchases
2. The use of awareness campaigns directed at the general public
3. The promotion of creditable eco-labels

26
 4. Use of product panels on the availability of waste prevention information and
products with a lower environmental impact
5. Integration of environmental and waste prevention criteria into calls for tenders and
contracts public and corporate procurement
6. The promotion of the re-use and/or repair of appropriate discarded products, notably
through the establishment or support of repair/re-use networks

It needs to be remembered that the effects of waste prevention actions are not visible immediately;
sometimes the effects are felt years later. They are also difficult to measure, and the thematic
strategy is not planning to prescribe EU waste prevention targets as this would not be the most
effective way to foster waste prevention. Such targets fail to address the complexity of
environmental impact. The weight of waste could be reduced yet the environmental impact could
increase, whereas small weight reductions can bring large reductions in environmental impact. The
strategy prescribes that Member States should develop waste prevention programmes in the context
of sustainable production and consumption.

6.2 Waste minimization

According to terminological work undertaken at OECD, waste minimisation is a broader term
than waste prevention (see Figure 6) in that it includes recycling. Waste minimisation, according
to which it encompasses these three elements in the following order or priority (Riemer &
Kristoffersen 1999):
− preventing and/or reducing the generation of waste at source;
− improving the quality of the waste generated, such as reducing the hazard; and
− encouraging re-use, recycling and recovery.

The OECD Definition of waste minimisation is:

Waste minimisation is preventing and/or reducing the generation of waste at the source;
improving the quality of waste generated, such as reducing the hazard, and encouraging
re-use, recycling, and recovery.

Waste minimization thus includes both waste prevention and recycling. It needs to be highlighted
though, that waste minimization should not be equalled with diversion from landfill only, which is a
sort of “end of pipe action” that assigns some recovery option to existing waste. Both waste
prevention and waste minimization should be primarily viewed as actions that occur before
products or materials are identified or recognised as waste.

6.3 Re-use
Re-use needs a special consideration under present circumstances, as for the last 10 year the
OECD’s hierarchy was accepted according to which product re-use is a preventive option, however,
the new waste framework directive considers it a recovery option. As there is no consensus to date,
both of the definitions will be provided:

OECD definition (OECD 2000):

Product re-use involves the multiple use of a product in its original form, for its
original purpose or for an alternative, with or without reconditioning.

Examples of product re-use include those that address:

27
 • Re-use after reconditioning, such as refilling glass or plastic bottles after washing, and using
empty adhesive barrels as oil barrels after reconditioning.
• Re-use without reconditioning, such as using shopping bags more than once.
The definition of re-use in the new waste framework directive is:
Re-use means any recovery operation by which products or components that have
become waste are used again for the same purpose for which they were conceived
Note that it is yet a proposal, this will be official definition of re-use only when the proposal will be
accepted.

6.4 Recycling
Recycling is defined as (European Council 1994):
Recycling shall mean the reprocessing in a production process of the waste materials for the original
purpose, or for other purposes, including organic recycling but excluding energy recovery.”
It is useful to distinguish three different forms of recycling: closed-loop recycling, open-loop
recycling, and down-cycling, which can be explained as follows (Lox 1994)
“Closed-loop recycling is a recycling process in which a waste material is used for the same
purpose as the original purpose or for another purpose requiring at least as severe properties as
the previous application so that, after one or several uses, this material can be used back again
for the original purpose.”
“Open-loop recycling is a recycling process in which a waste material is used for another
purpose than the original purpose and will never be used back again for the original purpose.”
“Down-cycling is a recycling process in which a (fraction of a) material from a used product
is used to make a product that does not require as severe properties as the previous one.”
Be reminded of the differences between re-use and recycle: during re-use, the product will not
change its shape; it is continuously used as such (such as beer or soft drink bottles which are
refilled). During recycling the product will go through some process, during which its structure is
going to be changed (such as beer or soft drink in aluminium cans, which are re-melted before they
are used again as drink containers).

6.4.1 The problem with recycling

The concept of recycling to conserve resources is based on the assumption that recycling requires
fewer raw materials and less energy, and generates fewer emissions into the environment, than
manufacturing new material. Recycling is not environmentally sound when additional
transportation steps using non-renewable fossil fuels must be used to collect the material prior to
recycling. For recycling to be environmentally beneficial, the effects of the collection,
transportation and reprocessing operations must be less harmful than those resulting from the
extraction and processing of the virgin raw material that the recycled product replaces. (Consider
that in Oulu, yearly about 1500 tonnes of recyclables (packaging, newspaper) are collected from the
households and transported over distances of hundreds of kilometres to recycle while, in the same
time, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of industrial waste are landfilled.) Recycling actually only
occurs once the secondary material has been converted into a new product, or is utilised in another
way. Thus, the availability of markets for the secondary materials generated is fundamental to the
success of recycling.

6.5 Recovery
Recovery is a collection concept, the latest European consensus is that the purpose of recovery is to
be linked with the expectation to replace virgin materials. In the proposed new framework directive

28
recovery is regarded to be “at least the operations listed in Annex II”. the content of Annex II is in
Table 8.

Table 8 Operations which may lead to recovery (Annex II)

R1 Use principally as a fuel or other means to generate energy.
R2 Solvent reclamation/regeneration.
R3 Recycling/reclamation of organic substances which are not used as solvents.
R4 Recycling/reclamation of metals and metal compounds.
R5 Recycling/reclamation of other inorganic materials.
R6 Regeneration of acids or bases.
R7 Recovery of components used for pollution abatement.
R8 Recovery of components from catalysts.
R9 Oil re-refining or other re-uses of oil.
R10 Spreading on land resulting in benefit to agriculture or ecological improvement, including
composting and other biological transformation processes.
R11 Use of wastes obtained from any of the operations numbered R1 - R10.
R12 Exchange of wastes for submission to any of the operations numbered R1 - R11.
R13 Storage of materials intended for submission to any operation in this Annex, excluding temporary
storage, pending collection, on the site where it is produced.

6.6 Disposal
As proposed by the proposal for the new framework directive, Member States shall regard as
disposal operations at least the operations listed in Annex I (Table 9), even where the operation has
as a secondary consequence the reclamation of substances or energy

Table 9 Disposal operations (Annex I)

D1 Tipping above or underground (e.g. landfill, etc.).
D2 Land treatment (e.g. biodegradation of liquid or sludge discards in soils, etc.).
D3 Deep injection (e.g. injection of pumpable discards into wells, salt domes or naturally occurring
repositories, etc.).
D4 Surface impoundment (e.g. placement of liquid or sludge discards into pits, ponds or lagoons, etc.).
D5 Specially engineered landfill (e.g. placement into lined discrete cells, which are capped and isolated
from one another and the environment, etc.).
D6 Release of solid waste into a water body except seas/oceans.
D7 Release into seas/oceans including seabed insertion.
D8 Biological treatment not specified elsewhere in this Annex which results in final compounds, which
are disposed of by means of any of the operations in this Annex.
D9 Physico-chemical treatment not specified elsewhere in this Annex which results in final compounds
that are disposed of by means of any of the operations in this Annex (e.g. drying).
D10 Incineration on land.
D11 Incineration at sea.
D12 Permanent storage (e.g. emplacement of containers in a mine, etc.).
D13 Blending or mixture prior to submission to any of the operations in this Annex.
D14 Repackaging prior to submission to any of the operations in this Annex.
D15 Storage pending any of the operations in this Annex, excluding temporary storage, pending
collection, on the site where it is produced.

7 Industrial metabolism and its importance to waste minimization

The major way in which the industrial metabolic system differs from the natural metabolism of the
Earth is that the natural cycles (of water, carbon/oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, etc.) are closed, whereas
the industrial cycles are open. In other words, the industrial system does not generally recycle its
nutrients. Rather, the industrial system starts with high quality materials (fossil fuels, ores) extracted
from the Earth, and returns them to nature in degraded form. (Ayres 1988)

29
It should also be pointed out that the bio-geosphere was not always a stable system of closed cycles.
Far from it. The earliest living cells on Earth obtained their nutrients, by fermentation, from
nonliving organic molecules whose origin is still not completely understood. At that time the
atmosphere contained no free oxygen or nitrogen; it probably consisted mostly of water vapour plus
some hydrogen and hydrogen-rich gases such as methane, hydrogen sulphide, and ammonia. The
fermentation process yields ethanol and carbon dioxide. The system could have continued only until
the fermentation organisms used up the original stock of “food” molecules or choked on the carbon
dioxide build-up. The system stabilised temporarily with the appearance of a new organism (blue-
green algae, or cyano-bacteria) capable of recycling carbon dioxide into sugars and cellulose, thus
again closing the carbon cycle. This new process was anaerobic photosynthesis. However, the
photosynthesis process also had a waste product: namely, oxygen. For a long time (over a billion
years) the oxygen generated by anaerobic photosynthesis was captured by dissolved ferrous iron
molecules, and sequestered as insoluble ferric oxide or magnetite, with the help of another primitive
organism, the stromatolites. The resulting insoluble iron oxide was precipitated on the ocean
bottoms. (The result is the large deposits of high-grade iron ore we exploit today.) The system was
still unstable at this point. It was only the evolutionary invention of two more biological processes,
aerobic respiration and aerobic photosynthesis that closed the oxygen cycle as well. Still other
biological processes - nitrification and de-nitrification, for instance - had to appear to close the
nitrogen cycle and others. Evidently biological evolution responded to inherently unstable situations
(open cycles) by “inventing” new processes (organisms) to stabilise the system by closing the
cycles. However, the instabilities in question were slow to develop, and the evolutionary responses
were also slow to evolve. It took several billion years before the biosphere reached its present
degree of stability. (Ayres 1988)

7.1 Entropy
The second law holds that energy is degraded through its use; it becomes less and less useful to do
work. Entropy is a measure of the state of usefulness of energy. The lower the entropy of a system,
the more work that energy can do. An easy way to understand entropy is to think of a home that is
heated by a gas furnace. The gas in the pipe leading to the furnace has low entropy (high energy
content). Once burned, the entropy of the gas increases as the energy from the gas is dispersed into
the home in the form of heat. Eventually the heat dissipates into the surrounding environment as it
escapes through the doors and windows. The more the heat dissipates the greater the increase in
entropy. Once the energy has escaped the house and entered into the surroundings, it is no longer in
a useful state. In other words, the energy has dissipated and is no longer useful for the purpose it
was intended. (Eflin 1997.)

Entropy plays a key role in explaining the environmental problems of today. By applying the
second law of thermodynamics to energy and materials consumption in modern society, technology
speeds up the use of both energy and materials. In his view, the modern industrial system is a
transformer of materials and energy, increasing entropy and reducing the usefulness of materials
and energy. (Rifkin 1980.)

The concern is the sustainability of natural resource use. A characteristic of the modern era is the
use of technology and natural resources in a wasteful way, one that continues to transform the
Earth, speed up the use of non-renewable energy, and accelerate material entropy in the process.
Material waste and waste heat are inevitable outcomes of this process. Waste heat is produced in
the process of fuel combustion and is a measure of the inefficiency of energy transformation. Solid
waste, produced as by-products of material fabrication or mineral extractions, is a measure of the
inefficiency of a material manufacturing system. Effluent discharged from a factory or processing
plant is a measure of the inefficiency of chemical transformations. Each case illustrates an industrial

30
system that is operating within the greater complex of the global environmental system and that is
generating a dissipative loss (i.e., irreversible loss through the simple dispersion of energy and
materials). Such losses represent real evidence of the inefficiency of production systems, as the
wastes are no longer recycled or reused in the production processes. Once lost from the system
through dissipative loss, these wastes must be disposed of – stored in a landfill or a containment
pond or discharged into the air, soil, or water (where they become diffused). (Eflin 1997.)

From this cursory look at the second law of thermodynamics, entropy, and dissipation we can see
one major requirement for an alternatively designed industry – to limit every opportunity within the
production and consumption processes for energy and materials to get lost. This requirement
produces several possible strategies (Eflin 1997):
ƒ To increase energy and material efficiency – something that can actually be achieved through
technological innovation;
ƒ To make the process of resource extraction, production, consumption, and waste
disposal/emission/pollution into a closed loop cycle; in other words reuse and recycle materials
wherever possible; and
ƒ To reduce the need for new/fresh natural resources and the release of wasteful and potentially
harmful by-products (both of which can be facilitated by the first two strategies). This is
particularly necessary for non-renewable resources (those that are not replaced after use through
natural re-growth) and waste repositories that are finite (either literally or in a practical
economic sense).

This also implies that we should increase our reliance on renewable forms of resources. Coupled
with reduced depletion of non-renewables, this would be a way to reduce the consumption of
energy and resources. It may not be possible to shift entirely from the use of non-renewable
resources, but it makes sense to devise and implement strategies for minimising the use of non-
renewable materials and energy sources.

7.2 Measures of Industrial Metabolism

There are only two possible long-run fates for waste materials: recycling and reuse or dissipative
loss. (This is a straightforward implication of the law of conservation of mass.) The more materials
are recycled, the less will be dissipated into the environment, and vice versa. Dissipative losses
must be made up by replacement from virgin sources. A strong implication of the analysis sketched
above is that a long-term (sustainable) steady-state industrial economy would necessarily be
characterised by near-total recycling of intrinsically toxic or hazardous materials, as well as a
significant degree of recycling of plastics, paper, and other materials whose disposal constitutes an
environmental problem. Heavy metals are among the materials that would have to be almost totally
recycled. (Ayres 1994) A good measure of unsustainability is dissipative use. This raises the
distinction between inherently dissipative uses and uses for which the material could be recycled or
reused, in principle, but is not. The latter could be termed potentially recyclable. The three classes
of materials use are summarised in Table 10.

Table 10 Classes of materials use (Ayres 1994)

Class 1 uses that are economically and technologically compatible with recycling under
present prices and regulations;
Class 2 uses that are not economically compatible with recycling but where recycling is
technically feasible, for example, if the collection problem were solved
Class 3 uses for which recycling is inherently not feasible

31
Admittedly there is some fuzziness in these classifications, but it should be possible for a group of
international experts to arrive at some reconciliation.

Generally speaking, it is arguable that most structural metals and industrial catalysts are in the first
category; other structural and packaging materials, as well as most refrigerants and solvents fall into
the second category. This leaves coatings, pigments, pesticides, herbicides, germicides,
preservatives, flocculants, antifreezes, explosives, propellants, fire retardants, reagents, detergents,
fertilisers, fuels, lubricants, and the like in the third category. In fact, it is easy to verify that most
chemical products belong in the third category, except those physically embodied in plastics,
synthetic rubber, or synthetic fibres. (Ayres 1994)

Table 11 shows world output of a number of materials - mostly chemicals – whose uses are, for the
most part, inherently dissipative (class 3).

Table 11 Examples of dissipative use (Ayres 1994)

Substance Dissipative uses

Heavy metals Fungicide, algicide, wood preservative, catalyst
Copper sulphate (CuSO4•5H2O) chromic acid (for plating), tanning, algicide
Sodium bichromate Pigment (glass)
Lead oxides Pigment
Lithopone (ZuS) Pigment (tires)
Zinc Oxide (TiO2) Pigment
Tetraethyl lead Gasoline additive
Arsenic Wood preservative, herbicide
Mercury Fungicide, catalyst
Other chemicals
Chlorine Acid bleach, water treatment, PVC solvents,
pesticides, refrigerants
Sulphur Acid (H2SO4), bleach, chemicals, fertilisers,
rubber
Ammonia Fertiliser, detergents, chemicals
Phosphoric acid Fertilisers, nitric acid, chemicals (nylon, acrylics)
NaOH Bleach, soap, chemicals
Na2CO3 Chemicals (glass)

With regard to materials that are potentially recyclable (classes 1 and 2), the fraction actually
recycled is a useful measure of the approach toward (or away from) sustainability (Ayres 1994).

7.3 Policy Implications of the Industrial Metabolism Perspective

There are two implications that come to mind. First, the industrial metabolism perspective is
essentially holistic in that the whole range of interactions between energy, materials, and the
environment is considered together – at least, in principle. The second major implication, which
virtually follows from the first, is that from this holistic perspective it is much easier to see that
narrowly conceived or short-run “quick fix” policies may be far from globally optimum. In fact,
from the larger perspective, such policies can be harmful.

32
The best way to explain the virtues of a holistic view is by contrasting it with narrower perspectives.
Consider the problem of waste disposal. It is a consequence of the law of conservation of mass that
the total quantity of materials extracted from the environment will ultimately return thence as some
sort of waste residuals. Yet environmental protection policy has systematically ignored this
fundamental reality by imposing regulations on emissions by medium. Typically, one legislative act
mandates a bureaucracy that formulates and enforces a set of regulations dealing with emissions
only to the air. Another act creates a bureaucracy that deals only with waterborne emissions, and so
forth. Narrowly conceived environmental policies have largely shifted waste emissions from one
form (and medium) to another, without significantly reducing the totals. In some cases, policy has
encouraged changes that merely dilute the waste stream without touching its volume at all (e.g.
VOC regulation).

Policy generally functions in the short term, and focuses on the interest of a specific geographic
area limited by political structure (terms of office, geographic boundary) Most humans do not think
beyond a time horizon of few years and a geographic region that encompasses their country.
However, sustainability issues need to be reaching beyond decades, even centuries, over continental
to global geographic scales. How policy systems can be developed to integrate wide temporal and
spacial scales? The implication of all these points for policymakers, of course, is that the traditional
governmental division of responsibility into a large number of independent bureaucratic fields is
dangerously faulty. Yet the way out of this organisational condition is far from clear.

8 Strategic waste prevention

Waste prevention refers to three types of practical actions, i.e., strict avoidance, reduction at source,
and product re-use. Strategic waste prevention is a policy concept that concretely situates waste
prevention within a longer-term resource management and sustainable development perspective.
Strategic waste prevention works toward the reduction of absolute waste amounts, hazards, and
risks, as appropriate, and is characterised by at least four aspects subject to continual refinement
over time (Vancini 2000):
a) A life-cycle perspective for identifying the policy intervention points linked with the highest
waste preventing effects and system-wide environmental benefits. This would include
attention to the fact that downstream waste prevention interventions can have upstream
benefits, and vice-versa. Life-cycle waste prevention and overall environmental protection is
likely to be further supported by the growing trend toward product-oriented policies (and, as
a consequence, the analogous trend away from a singular focus on facility-oriented
policies);
b) A material-differentiated approach that links different types of waste prevention targets,
instruments, and performance evaluation approaches to different types and classes of
material flows;
c) The substantive integration of social and economic aspects into environmental policy
discussions on waste prevention. Methods toward this end are wide-ranging and can include
increased integration of waste prevention policies with sectoral policies (e.g. mining,
energy, and agriculture), and increased stakeholder consultation during programme design to
assure “policy ownership”; and
d) Institutional mechanisms that facilitate co-operation across traditional institutional structures
(Cleland-Hamnett and Retzer 1993) such that greater waste prevention and overall policy
synergy are induced.

33
8.1 Links to other concepts
Governmental authorities with responsibility for waste prevention programmes need to be
conversant with range of concepts that relate to waste prevention. These include, but are not limited
to, eco-efficiency, cleaner production, industrial ecology, integrated pollution prevention and
control, extended producer responsibility, and integrated product policy. There are several evolving
policy concepts that complement and (potentially) help drive strategic waste prevention. Here is a
sampling (Vancini 2000):

8.1.1 Eco-efficiency (E2).

Seven criteria for eco-efficiency are (World Business Council for Sustainable Development
1995):
(a) minimise the material intensity of goods and services,
(b) minimise the energy intensity of goods and services,
(c) minimise toxic dispersion,
(d) enhance material recyclability,
(e) maximise the use of renewable resources,
(f) extend product durability, and
(g) increase the service intensity of goods and services”

These ideas are not new, but eco-efficiency attempts to combine them in a way that promotes
factor level improvements in value creation with minimal resource use and pollution and waste,
and as an aid to communication between governments, business, and others. Eco-efficiency is
sometimes used interchangeably with Cleaner Production.

Industrial Ecology (IE).

To be discussed in more detail later.

8.1.2 Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC).

“IPPC is a method to take into account all environmental media simultaneously when
attempting to reduce natural resource and energy use, exposure to hazardous substances and
releases of pollutants by economic activities. Therefore, IPPC promotes the concept of
economic progress with reduced consumption and pollution. To date, implementation of IPPC
has usually been associated with the firm-level adoption of so-called integrated permits.”
(OECD 1996b)

8.1.3 Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).

An approach where the producers’ physical and/or financial responsibility for a product is
extended to the post-consumer (waste) stage of a product’s life-cycle. Producers accept their
responsibility when they design their products to minimise life-cycle impacts and when they
accept legal, physical and/or economic responsibility for the environmental impacts that cannot
be eliminated by design (OECD).

8.1.4 Integrated Product Policy (IPP).

Five IPP ‘building blocks’ include (European Commission 1998):
(a) measures aimed at reducing and managing wastes generated by the consumption of
products,
(b) measures targeted at the innovation of more environmentally friendly products,
(c) measures to create markets for environmentally sound products,
(d) measures for transmitting information up and down the product chain,

34
 (e) measures which allocate responsibility for managing the environmental burdens of product
systems”.

The core or principal commonality between strategic waste prevention and the above 5 concepts is
the emphasis on taking measures to reduce the life-cycle environmental impacts from economic
activities, and hence to reduce the need for expensive clean-up technologies, disposal facilities, and
environmental remediation. Moreover, while all the concepts rely to a certain extent on “known”
ways of doing things (or at least on “known” ways of how things “should” be done), most seek to
promote a fundamentally improved scale of change compared to more traditional environmental
policy concepts.

In environmental terms, the most important difference between strategic waste prevention and other
concepts is the ultimate focus. Strategic waste prevention squarely concentrates on reducing waste
generation amounts and/or hazards while concurrently avoiding the transfer of problems to other
environmental media, other material stages, or other points in time. Another distinction is that many
of the concepts noted above have been applied most tangibly at the firm or organisational level
(IPPC, E2, IE), whereas waste prevention strategies (as well as IPP and EPR) inherently engage
multiple actors, including consumers.

The fact that waste prevention occurs before materials and products are tracked and identified as
wastes means that waste prevention may overlap with concepts that deal more directly with natural
resource management. The fact that waste prevention is diverse in focus, and potentially addresses
also energy content of materials, suggests a link to approaches that more concretely encompass
energy efficiency (Geller 1981) and greenhouse gas mitigation.

8.1.5 Integrated Resources Management

Waste management is often extended to Integrated Resources Management. It can be defined as
follows:
Integrated Resources Management is the recovery of economic value from any resource
produced naturally or by society while considering ecological, economic, technological
and social implications of recovery, recycling and re-integration technologies.

8.1.6 Resources use optimization

While the EU, within its proposal for a Directive on Waste focuses greatly on waste prevention, in
industry, it is important to take an extended view on resources in order to avoid that efficiency in
the use of one resource is achieved with wasting another. Originally resource efficiency is not a
waste management concept, as it refers to the use of natural resources in general, pointing out their
limited nature on a global scale, which necessitates their sparing use. It can be defined as follows
(Dillon and Anderson 1990):
“The objective of resource-use optimization is to maximize the level of net benefit
generated by applying a resource to produce an output.”

Other description of resources use optimization, when applied to natural resource use (Lewis and
Brabec 2005), implies that using fewer resources for a given function indicate more resource
efficiency. The concept of resources use optimization or resource efficiency in industry is often
used to indicate that apart of waste reduction, it also aims at reducing water and energy
consumption as well and that that these combined savings have created economic benefits. When
resource optimisation is applied instead of waste minimisation, another failing in the thinking
associated with waste minimisation strategies would be addressed: that of the definition of waste
itself.

35
9 Tools of resources use optimization
In the following, a number of tools will be introduced that can contribute to resources use
optimization. They are the following:
1. Industrial Ecology
2. Dematerialization
3. Decarbonization
4. Design for the Environment
5. Cradle-to-cradle design

In addition, during the course you have heard presentations from other lecturers on related issues
that also contribute to an efficient use of resources. These are:
6. Waste mapping
7. Lean production
8. Green Chemistry
9. Green engineering

9.1 Industrial Ecology

At its widest interpretation, resources use optimization should reach beyond the scale of a process
or a factory and concentrate on optimal use of resources on a global scale. This consideration is best
included in Industrial Ecology.

The basic definition of the term Industrial Ecology (IE) indicates an industrial system that operates
much like a natural ecosystem. A natural ecological system seems to be developed so that nothing
that contains energy or useful material will be lost. In natural ecosystems, materials and energy
circulate continuously in a complex web of interactions: Micro-organisms 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 (by-products that are not recycled, such as
fossil fuels), on the whole, they are self-contained and self-sustaining. In a similar fashion,
Industrial Ecology involves focusing less on the impacts of each industrial activity and more on the
overall impact of all such activities. (Frosch 1995.)

IE is a multidisciplinary study of industrial systems and economic activities and their links to
natural systems. It is a paradigm of a technology-society relationship, based on the concept of
mimicking the natural ecosystem and its efficiency in the use of materials: the waste of one
organism is food for another. IE involves designing of interlocking infrastructures as if they were a
series of interlocking manmade ecosystems interfacing with the natural global ecosystem. (Tibbs
1992.)

The essence of IE can be defined as (Allenby, 1999):

Industrial Ecology is the means by which humanity can deliberately and rationally
approach and maintain a desirable carrying capacity, given continued economic, cultural
and technological evolution. The concept requires that an industrial system be viewed not
in isolation from its surrounding systems but in concert with them. It is a systems view in
which one seeks to optimise the total materials cycle from virgin material, to finished
material, to component, to product, to obsolete product, and to ultimate disposal. Factors
to be optimised include resources, energy and capital.

IE recognises the need for continued technological evolution and sees the development of
environmentally appropriate technology as a critical component of the translation to a sustainable

36
world. It offers a unique approach within which environmental issues can be comprehensively
addressed. The most far-reaching implication of integrating of environmental concerns in the
economic decisions of companies and society is the need to take life-cycle approach to
environmental analyses. This approach requires that environmental impacts – with “environment”
taken broadly to include relevant safety, health, and social factors – be understood and summed up
across the lifetime of the product, process, material, technology, or service being evaluated. (Eflin
1997.)

The role of Industrial Ecology (IE) is to learn how to lighten the impact on the environment of
humans and economic activity. IE accepts as givens population and income. Our job is to minimise
waste and harmful exposures, various forms of environmental disturbance, and inefficiency. IE
examines such factors as choices of raw material, the intensity and efficiency of use of materials,
and fates of materials. It focuses on technical aspects of a particular set of links in the chain of
economic activity, while recognising the value of other social and behavioural approaches to
improving the human environment as well. The fundamental means, how to lessen impacts include
industrial systems conceived to approach zero emissions, the substitution of materials with superior
environmental performance, dematerialisation or reduced intensity of use of materials, and re-
conceptualisation of the economy to emphasise functions, i.e., services over goods.

9.2 Dematerialization
Dematerialization can be explained as follows:
Dematerialization is the process by which lesser amount of materials are used to make
product that perform the same functions as their predecessors.
There are plenty of examples of dematerialization in modern society. A typical one is that today’s
palmtop computers have more capability that the “supercomputers” of 10 years ago. Another is the
ability of modern stereo systems to produce sounds superior to that of large, bulky systems
available for sale only several years in the past. The ultimate example is one of integrated circuit
transistor packing density. The most recent efforts in this direction have been to use light beams or
tiny microscope tips to move single atoms from place on a surface. Such work may eventually lead
to circuits in which each electrical constituent is only few atoms in size with great increases in
speed an much diminished power requirements. Electronic circuits are not the only components
getting smaller. Various techniques of micro-fabrication are being used to produce flow sensors,
gear trains, and micro-motors measuring less than 100 μm in diameter. As development continues
and component such as micro-valves and micro-pumps are produced, those involved in nano-
engineering see entire micro-systems incorporating electrical mechanical, thermal, optical, magnetic
and chemical functions operating on a single, small silicon chip. There are many potential
applications, such as the use of micro-motors for security and medical application and micro-robots
for assembly tasks at sub-millimetre size scales. IBM researchers have built the world's first array
of transistors out of carbon nanotubes: measuring about 10 atoms across, it is 500 times smaller
than today’s silicon-based transistors.

9.2.1 Carbon nanotubes, the ultimate champions of dematerialization (Wikipedia)

Carbon nanotubes are tubular carbon molecules with properties that make them potentially useful in
extremely small scale electronic and mechanical applications. They exhibit unusual strength and
unique electrical properties, and are extremely efficient conductors of heat. They are on the order of
only a few nanometres wide (on the order of 1/10 000 the width of a human hair), and their length
can be millions of times greater than their width. Nanotubes can be opened and filled with materials
such as biological molecules, raising the possibility of applications in biotechnology. They can be

37
used to dissipate heat from tiny computer chips. Nanotubes can be opened and filled with materials
such as biological molecules, raising the possibility of applications in biotechnology. They can be
used to dissipate heat from tiny computer chips. Carbon nanotubes additionally can also be used to
produce nanowires of other chemicals, such as gold or zinc oxide. One use for nanotubes that has
already been developed is as extremely fine electron guns, which could be used as miniature
cathode ray tubes in thin high-brightness low-energy low-weight displays.

Researchers have spun the tubes into composite fibres that are tougher than steel, Kevlar, or spider
silk. The new fibres appear to be tougher than any other synthetic or natural material. It is 20 times
as tough as steel wire, 17 times as tough as the Kevlar used in bullet-proof vests, and 4 times as
tough as spider silk. The finished threads are the width of a human hair and 100 to 200 meters long.
This fibre will provide for a new generation of high-strength fabrics and energy-absorbing
materials, such as vehicle armour. The fibres were fashioned into electricity-storage devices called
supercapacitors, which they incorporated into ordinary cloth. This demonstrates the fibres' potential
for electronic textiles, such as military uniforms with built-in antennas, sensors, or tiny batteries for
powering communications equipment.

The biggest constraint to a wide use of carbon nanotubes are its price: as of 2003, nanotubes cost
upwards from 20-1000 €/g, depending on purity, composition (single-wall, double-wall, multi-wall)
and other characteristics. In comparison, the price of gold is about10€/g.

9.2.2 Constraints to dematerialization

Perhaps the dominant constraint on dematerialization is that many industrial products are rather
directly related to human beings and human size, and cannot be reduced arbitrarily. Personal
computers for example have decreased substantially in size and eight over the past decade.
Improvements in data storage technology have made it possible to minimise the use of floppy disk
drives and, in turn, to require less use of disk drive power. Integrated circuits are lighter and
smaller. Nonetheless, keyboards or notepads cannot be reduced very much in size without
becoming out of scale with the human hand and thus inefficient or worthless. Thus, as long as
manual interaction is required to enter information the dematerialization possibilities of the personal
computer are limited. A similar constraint applies to getting information from a personal computer
in a usable form. Visual resolution limitation dictates the size and mode of operation of displays.
Unless consumers are satisfied with some mode of oral communication, dematerialization
possibilities are again only modest.

How many other things are controlled by human sizes? It turns out that they are surprisingly many.
Houses, for example and most of the things in them, cannot change size very much without
becoming unsuitable for activities like sleeping, storing food, washing clothes, and placing
photographs on tables. The restriction extend to automobiles and trains, and thus to roadways and
rail lines, directional signs, and bridge reinforcements.

Given the preceding perspectives, what might one see as the limits to dematerialization? First, we
can point out that materials research can produce items of similar size to their predecessors, but
with less use of materials. Modern automobiles, for example, are 20-30% lighter than those of a
decade ago because of increased use of aluminium, plastics, and higher strength steels and alloys.
Dematerialization is thus achieved by changing physical properties rather than size. Another
technique is to increase the lifetime of a product, or at least of its major components. The increase
in product cycling time requires less overall material extraction and achieves dematerialization
through reduction in the frequency of demand. Finally, of course, are the items with which humans
are not directly associated and for which size is not constrained. For example the cables connecting

38
telephone-switching offices are now largely made of optical fibres rather than copper wire. They
can carry data requiring far less than 1% of the materials of the technology they replaced.

The dematerialization discussion can be generalised to a trend that will become much more
significant in the future: intellectual capital and sophisticated information management will
increasingly substitute for raw material and energy inputs. In one sense, that is a simple substitution
of lower-priced goods for those with higher prices, because information and intellectual resources
such as computer power and information transmitting capacity are rapidly becoming cheaper
whereas prices for energy and materials, particularly virgin materials, are rising. (vonWeizsäcker et
al. 1997)

Savings through dematerialization can often undo real resource savings, as technological
complications have prevented efficiency gains from translating into materials reductions. (See Table
12)

Table 12 Factors that undercut dematerialization gains

Product Efficiency gains through
dematerialization
Plastics in cars Use of plastics in cars increased by 26
% between 1980 and 1994, replacing
steel in many uses, and reducing car
weight by 6%
Bottles and cans Aluminium cans weight 430 % less
today than they did 20 years ago
Lead batteries A typical automobile battery used 30
pounds of lead in 1974, but only 20
pounds in 1994 – with improved
performance
Radial tires Radial tires are 25% lighter and last
twice as long as bias-ply tires
Mobile phones Weight of mobile phones was reduced
10-fold between 1991 and 1996
Factors that undercut gains
Cars contain 25 chemically incompatible
plastics that, unlike steel, cannot be easily
recycled, Thus most plastics in cars winds up
in landfills
Cans replaced an environmentally superior
product – refillable bottles.
Increased battery shipments increased by
offset the efficiency gains.
Radial tires are more difficult to retread.
Sales of retreaded passenger car tires fell by
52 % in the US between 1977 and 1997.
Subscriber to cellular telephone service
jumped more than 8-fold in the same period,
nearly offsetting the gains from
dematerialization. Moreover, the mobile
phones did not typically replace older
phones, but were additions to a household’
phone inventory.

Materials complexity often deters recycling because of the difficulty of separating materials into
their pure, recyclable components. Products made from a mix of materials – from electronic devices
containing plastic and metal, to envelopes with plastic windows – are expensive to recycle because
of the work required disassembling them. But because absolute reduction in materials use was not a
policy priority in the past three decades, creative options like these were not pursued. Recycling is
also difficult when materials are dissipated during use because these materials are not easy to
recover. Markets for secondary materials are often overwhelmed by the limited capacity of most
economies to absorb them. Economies designed to use virgin materials will naturally find the
demand for secondary materials limited. In short, recycling as currently structured, focuses on
materials that are easily collected, and easily stripped of foreign matter, and for which a market
exists. As long as little effort is made to loosen these parameters, recycling will remain a marginal
activity.

39
In sum, major reductions in materials use were not achieved over the past several decades, mainly
because there was no intent to do so and, in any case, the gains achieved were undone by ever-
growing levels of consumption.

9.2.3 Dematerialization through service

Services are increasingly referred to in the discussion on sustainable production and consumption
patterns. It is argued that a shift from producing and consuming products to producing and
consuming services is central to a sustainable economy. The shift to a service economy has been
presented as one means to reach dematerialization, i.e., a reduction in the materials intensity of
economic activities. (Heiskanen and Jalas 2000)

The following applications are examples of exchanging material use to service:

- Sharing large appliances - if families wouldn’t buy washing machines, but all use the common
one in the laundry room.
- Car-pooling (sharing a car).
- Business-to-business - selling the service of transportation rather than cars.
- Leasing instead of selling (copy machines, carpets, towels, bed-linen, work clothing).
- Selling intelligence, not material - for example if pesticide manufacturers sell pest control,
meaning knowledge on the movement of pests and advise to spread pesticides only when
necessary.
- Renting - furnishing and art instead of buying.
- Video-conferencing - can save 99% energy and material resources when compared if everybody
travels to one conference location.
- Telecommuting - is the ability to do your work at a location other than an office at your
employer. With portable computers, high speed telecommunications links of today, people can
work almost anywhere at least some of the time.

9.3 Decarbonization
The word itself means an action or process of removing carbon from something. From the point of
view of resources optimization and sustainable development, the purpose decarbonisation can be
explained as follows:
The purpose of decarbonization is to lower greenhouse gas emissions through reducing
our dependence on fossil fuels.

Three approaches can be mentioned to achieve decarbonization:

1. Use of non-carbon based or renewable energy sources
2. Energy-efficiency to reduce energy need

Decarbonization is a relevant issue as at present, the generation of energy occurs predominantly

through the combustion of fossil fuels. This practice imposes a heavy burden on the environment as
a consequence of the emission of carbon dioxide, sulphur gases, particulate matter, heavy metals,
and a variety of other species. The environmental impacts of fossil fuels ideally are better avoided
than mitigated. One solution is using alternative energy sources: wind, solar, geothermal. The most
intelligent approach to dealing with energy requirements is to minimise them at the design stage,
e.g. designing processes and products for energy efficiency. (Gradel & Allenby 1995)

40
In addition to the above two, CO2 recovery from flue-gas is also considered as decarbonization, this
issue has been presented in another lecture during the course. Let’s start now with a short review of
non-carbon based energy sources.

9.3.1 Geothermal Energy (Source: Geothermal Education Office3)

Geothermal Energy is heat derived from the earth. It is the thermal energy contained in the rock and
fluid that fills the fractures and pores within the rock in the earth's crust. Calculations show that the
earth, originating from a completely molten state, would have cooled and become completely solid
many thousands of years ago without an energy input in addition to that of the sun. It is believed
that the ultimate source of geothermal energy is radioactive decay occurring deep within the earth.
In most areas, this heat reaches the surface in a very diffuse state. However, due to a variety of
geological processes, some areas are underlain by relatively shallow geothermal resources.
Geothermal energy comes from the heat that exists below the earth's surface. Down to a depth of 10
meters, air temperature influences the ground temperature. Beyond this depth the temperature of the
earth's interior is the only determining factor, unaffected by the seasons. At a depth of 100 meters,
the temperature is between 2.5 and 4 degrees Celsius.

These resources can be classified as low temperature (less than 90°C), moderate temperature (90°C
- 150°C), and high temperature (greater than 150°C). The uses to which these resources are applied
are also influenced by temperature. The highest temperature resources are generally used only for
electric power generation. Uses for low and moderate temperature resources can be divided into two
categories: direct use and ground-source heat pumps.

- Direct use, as the name implies, involves using the heat in the water directly (without a heat
pump or power plant) for such things as heating of buildings, industrial processes,
greenhouses, aquaculture (growing of fish) and resorts. Direct use projects generally use
resource temperatures between 38°C to 149°.

- Ground-source heat pumps use the earth or groundwater as a heat source in winter and a heat
sink in summer. Using resource temperatures of 4°C to 38°C, the heat pump, a device which
moves heat from one place to another, transfers heat from the soil to the house in winter and
from the house to the soil in summer. Accurate data is not available on the current number of
these systems; however, the rate of installation is thought to be between 10,000 and 40,000
per year.

The current production of geothermal energy from all uses places third among renewables,
following hydroelectricity and biomass, and ahead of solar and wind. Despite these impressive
statistics, the current level of geothermal use pales in comparison to its potential. The key to wider
geothermal use is greater public awareness and technical support.

9.3.2 Solar energy (Source: EERE4)

Solar technologies use the sun's energy and light to provide heat, light, hot water, electricity, and
even cooling, for homes, businesses, and industry. Wood and dry crop wastes are referred to as
biomass derived fuels. Plants use photosynthesis, deriving the energy from the sun. About a century
ago, firewood was the most common form of fuel. Biomass is a significant form of energy source in
Finland. The cheapest source of solar electricity is the wind power. Variation of pressure between

3
URL: http://geothermal.marin.org/
4
US Department of Energy web site for information on energy efficiency and renewable energy
technologies. URL: http.//www.eere.energy.gov/

41
areas caused by solar energy, causes wind effects. This form of energy is used to run turbines that in
turn generate electricity.

Buildings designed for passive solar energy and daylight use incorporate design features such as
large south-facing windows and building materials that absorb and slowly release the sun's heat. No
mechanical means are employed in passive solar heating. Incorporating passive solar designs can
reduce heating bills as much as 50 %. Passive solar designs can also include natural ventilation for
cooling.

Photovoltaic (PV) cells are devices that convert sunlight to electricity, bypassing thermodynamic
cycles and mechanical generators. The phenomenon that sunlight photons free electrons from
common silicon, was first discovered in the 18th century. The PV cells were developed at Bell Labs
in 1950 primarily initially for space applications. The Hubbell telescope utilizes solar panels for its
energy requirements. Solar panels can power a 17" b/w TV, a radio or a fan. Some electric lighting
systems provide sufficient current for up to 10 hours of lightning each evening.

A drawback of PV cells is the use of silicon crystals, which makes PV cells expensive. Silicon
crystals are currently assembled manually, silicon purification is difficult and a lot of silicon is
wasted. The operation of silicon cells requires a cooling system, because performance degrades at
high temperatures. However, it has convinced analysts that solar cells will become a significant
source of energy by the end of the century. Research is underway for new fabrication techniques,
like those used for microchips. Alternative materials such as cadmium sulphide and gallium
arsenide are at an experimental stage. Reduction of cost will depend the economies of scale. Oil
companies are aware of the renewed interest in solar power. They are diversifying their holdings in
other forms of energy. Exxon is the second largest producer of solar cells.

Another problem is, what do you do, when the sun goes down? The simple answer is to build an
auxiliary system that will store energy when the sun is out. The problem is that such storage
systems are unavailable today. Some simple systems exist, such as water pipes surrounded by
vacuum. The ocean is a natural reservoir of solar power and could be used as a source for thermal
energy, for example to draw warm water from the surface and cold water from the depths. The most
probable solution is the incorporation of hybrid systems: using a combination of solar and
traditional sources. Research on photovoltaic cells will continue, majority of the resources will
probably flow into research for developing better and more efficient solar cells, and more research
will also be undertaken to develop long lasting rechargeable batteries.

9.3.3 Energy efficiency

The agreement reached at the Ninth Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable development
(CSD-9), recognizes for the first time that energy is central to achieving the goals of sustainable
development. Industry uses substantial amounts of energy and, as a consequence, contributes
significantly to energy related environmental problems. In the USA, for example, manufacturing
activities account for some 30% of all energy consumed and much of that energy is very
inefficiency employed. Figure 6 shows that the use of electricity (mostly generated from fossil
fuels) is concentrated in a few industry types, such that six industry groups consume more than 85%
of total industrial energy or energy equivalents. (Graedel and Allenby 1995)

Energy intensity is highest during materials extraction processes. These industries are the suppliers
of processed materials to the intermediate processing industries, so on cannot plan to decrease
industrial energy use by eliminating these extraction industries. Rather, one needs to investigate

42
opportunities within the extraction industries for reductions in energy intensity, which is energy
consumption per GDP. (Graedel and Allenby 1995)

Figure 6 Consumption of energy in manufacturing industries (Graedel and Allenby 1995)

The intermediate processing industries are too diverse to be discussed individually, but several
general techniques for improving their energy efficiency can be described (Graedel and Allenby
1995):
1. Computerised systems for the management of energy use. The overall concept is that energy
should be used only when needed, and not because inattention or lack of on-site personal makes
it impractical to exercise control. Thus, equipment should be started and stopped as dictated by
time of day or by sensors of product stream characteristics. Among these types of energy-using
equipment that can be controlled in this way are motors, boilers, fans, and lights.
2. Utilisation of residual heat from process stream, product streams exhaust streams, and alike.
Often these actions will take the form of increased attention to process redesign so that the
exchange of heat among material flow streams can be optimised.
3. Increased use can be made of modern design motors, especially those with variable speed
drives. The gains that can be expected are quite dependent on the application, but 20-50%
decreases in energy use have been realised in several test cases.
4. Improve lightning efficiency by the exploitation of natural daylight and use of energy-efficient
lamps.
5. Good housekeeping practices: Switching off non-used lights and machines, adjusting the
ambient temperature to best comfort of workers, avoiding heat losses through open doors,
windows, etc.

9.4 Design for the Environment (DFE)

The electronics industry in USA began to develop a set of practices based on IE principles. These
were captured under the title of Design for Environment. In 1992 the Office of Technology
Assessment of U.S. Congress issued the publication: Green Products by Design. In 1993 the
America Electronics Industry published a collected set of White Papers under the title “The Hows
and Whys of Design for the Environment”. Later the product oriented focus has been generally
ignored in the U.S., but become a central tenant of European technology and environment policies –
esp. in Northern Europe & Germany.

The idea behind DFE is to ensure that all-relevant and ascertainable environmental considerations
and constraints are integrated into a firm’s product realisation (design) process. The goal is to

43
achieve environmentally preferable manufacturing processes and products while maintaining
desirable product price/performance characteristics. (Graedel & Allenby 1995)

DFE incorporates the concepts of pollution prevention, waste minimisation and toxics use reduction
as elements in a complex multidimensional analysis. Design of a product begins with product
definition, which is a statement of the features that a specific product should have when
development is completed. These features normally include what the product will be used for, how
it will function, what’s its properties will be, the range of probable cost, and (if appreciate) its
aesthetic attributes. The product definition list gives the designer many things to consider
simultaneously. This is called “Design for X” (DFX), where X may by any of features the product
needs to have. The following can be mentioned (Graedel & Allenby 1995):
† Assembly – The consideration of assemblability, including ease of assembly, error-free
assembly, common part assembly, etc.
† Compliance – Consideration of the regulatory compliance required for manufacturing and field
use, including topics as electromagnetic compatibility
† Environment
− Design for recycling
− Design for energy efficiency
− Design for Remanufacturing
− Design for Disassembly
− Design for incineration, etc.
† Manufacturability – the consideration of how well a design can be integrated into factory
processes such as fabrication and assembly.
† Material Logistics and Component Applicability - the topic focuses on factory and field
material movement and management considerations, and the corresponding applicability of
components and materials
† Orderability - the consideration of how the design impacts the ordering process from the
customer perspective, and corresponding manufacturing and distribution considerations
† Reliability – the considerations of such topics as electrostatic discharge, corrosion resistance,
and operations under variable ambient conditions
† Safety and Liability prevention – Adherence to safety standards, and design to forestall misuse,
or products in the field of costly legal action.
† Serviceability – design is to facilitate initial installations, as well as repair and modification of
products in the field or at service centres.
† Testability – design to facilitate factory and field testing at all levels of system complexity,
devices, circuit boards and so forth.

9.5 Cradle-to-cradle design (Source: McDonough and Braungart 2002)

An environmental design concepts introduced in more detail during the course was that of William
McDonough & Michael Braungart based on their book Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we
make things. Theirs is a new philosophy of design calling for the transformation of human industry
through ecologically intelligent design. They advocate that instead of designing cradle-to-grave
products, dumped in landfills at the end of their 'life,' we shall transform industry by creating
products for cradle-to-cradle cycles, whose materials are perpetually circulated in closed loops.

Cradle to Cradle Design models human industry on nature's processes, in which materials are
viewed as nutrients circulating in healthy, safe metabolisms. Industry must protect and enrich
ecosystems – nature's biological metabolism – while also maintaining safe, productive technical
metabolism for the high-quality use and circulation of mineral, synthetic, and other materials.
(Recognize that this philosophy in principle aims at avoiding dissipative losses.) A major way how

44
this can be avoided is to design products combined of pure technical nutrients and biological
nutrients, which can then be disassembled after use.
− Technical nutrient is a material that remains in a closed-loop system of manufacture, reuse,
and recovery (the technical metabolism), maintaining its value through many product life
cycles.
− Biological nutrient is a biodegradable material posing no immediate or eventual hazard to
living systems that can be used for human purposes and can safely return to the environment
to feed environmental processes.

From historical examples from the roots of the industrial revolution; through the descriptions of key
design principles to some cases of innovative products and business strategies already reshaping the
marketplace, McDonough and Braungart argue that the conflict between industry and the
environment is not an indictment of commerce but an outgrowth of purely opportunistic design. The
design of products and manufacturing systems growing out of the Industrial Revolution reflected
the spirit of the day-and yielded a host of unintended yet tragic consequences.

Using our growing knowledge of the living earth, designers should employ the intelligence of
natural systems – the effectiveness of nutrient cycling, the abundance of the sun's energy – to create
products, industrial systems, buildings, even regional plans that allow nature and commerce to
fruitfully co-exist. The authors propose that people and industries set out to create:
− Buildings that, like trees, produce more energy than they consume, accumulate and store solar
energy, and purify their own waste water and release it slowly in a purer form.
− Factory effluent water that is cleaner than the influent.
− Products that, when their useful life is over, do not become useless waste, but can be tossed
onto the ground to decompose and become food for plants and animals, rebuilding soil; or,
alternately, return to industrial cycles to supply high quality raw materials for new products.

The book is printed on a ‘synthetic paper’, made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers, designed
to look and feel like top quality paper while also being waterproof and durable. This book is a
technical nutrient; it can be easily recycled in localities with systems to collect polypropylene, like
that in yogurt containers. This treeless book points the way toward the day when synthetic books,
like many other products, can be used, recycled, and used again without losing any material quality
– in cradle-to-cradle cycles.

10 Sustainable products and production (Source: Lowell Center for Sustainable Production5)
Ultimately, the concepts introduced in this course can help you in designing sustainable products
and production systems. Sustainable Production is the creation of goods and services using
processes and systems that are:
− non-polluting;
− conserving of energy and natural resources;
− economically efficient;
− safe and healthful for workers, communities, and consumers; and,
− socially and creatively rewarding for all working people.

10.1 Principles of Sustainable Production

The following principles have been adapted from the Lowell Centre for Sustainable Production.

5
URL: http://www.uml.edu/centers/LCSP/ Also includes materials from URL: http://www.sustainableproduction.org/

45
Products and services are:
• safe and ecologically sound throughout their life cycle;
• as appropriate, designed to be durable, repairable, readily recycled, compostable, or easily
biodegradable;
• produced and packaged using the minimal amount of material and energy possible.

Processes are designed and operated such that:

• wastes and ecologically incompatible by-products are reduced, eliminated or recycled on-
site;
• chemical substances or physical agents and conditions that present hazards to human health
or the environment are eliminated;
• energy and materials are conserved, and the forms of energy and materials used are most
appropriate for the desired ends;
• work spaces are designed to minimize or eliminate chemical, ergonomic and physical
hazard.

Workers are valued and:

• their work is organized to conserve and enhance their efficiency and creativity;
• their security and well-being is a priority;
• they are encouraged and helped to continuously develop of their talents and capacities;
• their input to and participation in the decision making process is openly accepted.

11 Cleaner production
The above principle of sustainable products and production closely relates to that of cleaner
production. This concept has been introduced by the United Nations Environmental Programme
Division of Technology Industry and Economics.

Cleaner Production describes a preventative approach to environmental management. It is a broad

term that encompasses what some countries institutions call eco-efficiency, waste minimisation,
pollution prevention, or green productivity, but it also includes something extra: Cleaner Production
refers to a mentality of how goods and services are produced with the minimum environmental
impact under present technological and economic limits. UNEP defined cleaner production as
follows:
”Cleaner Production is the continuous application of an integrated preventive
environmental strategy to processes, products, and services to increase overall efficiency,
and reduce risks to humans and the environment. Cleaner Production can be applied to
the processes used in any industry, to products themselves and to various services
provided in society.”

For production processes, Cleaner Production results from one or a combination of:
− conserving raw materials, water and energy
− eliminating toxic and dangerous raw materials
− reducing the quantity and toxicity of all emissions and wastes at source during the production
process

For products, Cleaner Production aims to reduce the environmental, health and safety impacts of
products over their entire life cycles, from raw materials extraction, through manufacturing and use,
to the 'ultimate' disposal of the product.

46
For services, Cleaner Production implies incorporating environmental concerns into designing and
delivering services.

11.1 Pollution prevention

Cleaner production is best known in North America as pollution prevention. The 3M Company is
often credited with first using the concept of pollution prevention in its ‘‘Pollution Prevention Pays
(3P) Program’’ (Brosky, 1992), which inspired widespread investigation of pollution prevention
opportunities (Van Berkel, 2001). The 3M Program recognizes product reformulation, system
modification, equipment redesign, and resource recovery changes that can be made to
manufacturing, distribution or administration processes, as key pollution prevention practices. In the
United States, the ‘‘shift from a conventional pollution control to a preventative approach
commenced in the late-1970s in response to 3M’s widely publicized research, which proved that
sufficient savings could be achieved through technological and operational improvements (Hilson
2003). The subsequent efforts made at the university level to illustrate more in detail the potential
business benefits of pollution prevention both helped to further perpetuate makeshift changes in
industry and facilitate the undertaking of a number of progressive activities at the government level
(Overcash, 1997 as quoted in Hilson 2003). The implementation of the US Pollution Prevention Act
in 1990 was the most significant of these changes (Hilson 2003).

The essential feature of the P2 approach is the concept of ‘reduction at source’, based on the idea
that the generation of pollutants can be reduced or eliminated by increasing efficiency in the use of
raw materials, energy, water and other resources. The most widely referenced interpretation of
pollution prevention is that of the US EPA, which defines pollution prevention to mean source
reduction, as defined under the Pollution Prevention Act, and other practices that reduce or
eliminate the creation of pollutants through increased efficiency in the use of raw materials, energy,
water, or other resources, or protection of natural resources by conservation. (US EPA, 1990). Lou
and Huang (2000, p. 59) provide an equally thorough interpretation, noting that, “industrial
pollution prevention” emphasizes primarily “technologies (that) have been developed for
technology change, material substitution, in-plant recovery/reuse and treatment.” Because it mainly
describes environmental improvements resulting from technological change, pollution prevention
should, in fact, be treated as a subset of Cleaner Production (Hilson 2003).

Summary
In summation, the main concepts presented in this material can be related to each other as depicted
in Figure 7. Sustainable development is concerned about the amount of resources used on a global
scale, trying to minimize total resources input into society. Resources use efficiency is about
avoiding the wastage of resources, by maximizing their utilization in material production and
energy generation (minimizing fraction Waste 1). Waste prevention is about avoiding or reducing
the amounts of wastes during any production process. Cleaner production is a wider concept as
depicted in the figure, within this chart, only the cleaner production aims of conserving raw
materials, water and energy and reducing the quantity and toxicity of all emissions and wastes at
source during the production process (minimizing fraction Waste 2). Eco-efficiency is a concept to
be implemented in an industrial process and aims at reducing environmental impacts while
improving profits, by reducing wastage within the industrial facility. Pollution prevention is in
principle the same concept as cleaner production, however, in this figure it is depicted mainly as a
factor in minimizing fraction Waste 3, which are the pollutant released from a factory during the
production process. In essence, both cleaner production and pollution prevention are aiming at this
as well. Re-use is a strategy which can be used to avoid that the product would become waste.

47
 Figure 7 Main points of influence of various tools on resource use and waste amounts

Recycling or recovery can be applied to recover the material or energy content imbedded in the
product itself. In essence, it is about maximizing the amount of recovered resources by minimizing
fraction Waste 4, which is the part of the product which cannot be recovered.

Figure 7 also intends to illustrate the range of steps in a products life-cycle where wastes are
produced. It is evident that in a closed industrial ecosystem the amount of recovered resources
ought to be close to the amount of total resources input and losses are to be avoided. This
necessitates the minimization of the sum of wastes in fractions 1 to 4. The thickness of the arrows
representing Wastes 1-4 are also indicative. The amounts of wastes are the greatest early in the
product’s life-cycle. This means that tools to be applied are the most effective the earlier they can
be applied in the life-cycle. Ultimately, this defines the theme of this course; waste minimization
and resources use optimization through an environmentally conscious product and process design
by using the proper conceptual tools.

48
References
Ayres RU (1988) Self organisation in biology and economics. International Journal on the Unity of the
Sciences 1 (3)(Fall) [also IIASA Research Report #RR-88-1].
Ayres RU (1994) Industrial Metabolism: Theory and Policy In: Allenby BR & Richard DJ (eds) Greening of
Industrial Ecosystems. National Academy Press, Washington D.C., USA.
Brandsma E.1997. “Main Sources and Types of Wastes and their Trends”. Chapter 1 in Changing
Consumption Patterns: Waste Prevention and Minimisation - Proceedings of an International
Conference. 1997. Korea Environment Institute.
Brosky, D.L. (1992) Pollution prevention: part of your waste management program. Water Science and
Technology 26 (1–2), 289–299.
Brundtland (1987) Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. ‘Our common
future’
Carson R (1962) Silent Spring. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company.
Cheyne I & Purdue M (1995) Fitting definition to purpose: The search for a satisfactory definition of waste.
Journal of Environmental Law 7(2):149-168.
Cleland-Hamnett, W. and J. Retzer 1993. “Crossing Agency Boundaries.” The Environmental Forum.
March/April 1993. Pp 17-21.
CSD (Commission on Sustainable Development) 1997. U.N. Secretary-Generals Report on Chapters 20 and
21 of Agenda 21 for the fifth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, April 1997, New
York (as reported in Brandsma 1997).
Commission of the European Communities (2001) The Commission’s White Paper on the Strategy for a
future Chemicals Policy. COM(2001) 88 final. 32 p.
Commission of European Communities (2003) Towards a thematic strategy on the prevention and recycling
of waste. Communication from the Commission, COM(2003) 301 final.
Commission of the European Communities (2005) Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and
the Council on Waste. COM(2005) 667 final. http://europa.eu.int/eur-
lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2005/com2005_0666en01.pdf
Commission of the European Communities (2005) Taking sustainable use of resources forward: A Thematic
strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste. Communication from the Commission to the Council,
The European Parliament, The European Economic and Social Committee and The Committee of the
Regions. COM(2005) 666 final. 32p. http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/waste/strategy.htm
Commission of the European Communities (2005) Annexes to the Communication from the Commission to
the Council, The European Parliament, The European Economic and Social Committee and The
Committee of the Regions. Taking sustainable use of resources forward: A Thematic strategy on the
prevention and recycling of waste. COM(2005)670 final. 16p.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/natres/pdf/annex_com_en.pdf
Desrochers, Pierre (2002) Industrial ecology and the rediscovery of inter-firm recycling linkages: historical
evidence and policy implications. Industrial and Corporate Change, 11(5):1031-1057.
Dillon, J.L. and J.R. Anderson (1990) The Analysis of Response in Crop and Livestock Production, 3rd ed.,
Pergamon Press, Oxford.
Eflin J (1997) Industrial Ecology as a system: A conceptual framework. Developing Active Learning
Modules on the Human Dimensions of Global Change "Industry in Concert with the Environment:
Technological Change and Industrial Ecology" Unit 2. Association of American Geographers.
http://www.aag.org/HDGC/www/industry/unit2/html/unit2frame.html
European Communities (1999) EU focus on waste management. Office for Official Publication of the
European Communities, 1999. Luxemburg ISBN 92-828-4825-6.
European Council (1991a) Council Directive 91/156/EEC of 18 March 1991 amending Directive
75/442/EEC on Waste Official Journal L 078, 26/03/1991 p.32-37.
European Council (1991b) Council Directive 91/271/EEC of 21 May 1991 concerning Urban Waste Water
Treatment [Official Journal L 135 of 30.05.1991]. Amended by Commission Directive 98/15/EC of 27
February 1998 [Official Journal L 67, 07.03.1998]
European Council (1993) Council Regulation No 259/93 of 1 February 1993 on the Supervision and Control
of Shipments of Waste Within, Into and Out of the European Community Council Official Journal L 30,
06.02.1993
European Council (1993a) Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous
Wastes and their Disposal. Document 293A0216(02). Official Journal L 039, 16/02/1993 p.3–22.

49
European Council (1993b) European Community Programme of Policy and Action in Relation to the
Environment and Sustainable Development of 1 February 1993. Document 493Y0517(01) Official journal
NO. C 138, 17/05/1993 1–4.
European Council (1994) Council Directive 94/62/EC of 15 December 1994 on Packaging and Packaging
Waste. Document 394L0062. Official Journal L 365, 31/12/1994 p. 0010 – 0023.
European Council (1996) Council Directive 96/61/EC of 24 September 1996 concerning Integrated Pollution
Prevention and Control. [Official Journal L 257, 10.10.1996].
European Council (1997) Council Resolution (97/C76/01) of 24 February 1997 on a Community Strategy for
Waste Management. Document 397Y0311(01). Official Journal C 076, 11/03/1997 p. 1–4.
European Council (1998) Decision No 2179/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24
September 1998 on the Review of the European Community Programme of Policy and Action in Relation
to the Environment and Sustainable Development ‘Towards Sustainability.’
European Council (1999a) Council Decision 1999/170/EC of 25 January 1999 adopting a specific
programme for research, technological development and demonstration on energy, environment and
sustainable development (1998 to 2002). Document 399D0170. Official Journal L 064, 12/03/1999 p. 58–
77.
European Council (1999) Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the Landfill of Waste
European Council (1999b) Council Decision of 17 December 1999 authorising Member States to apply and
to continue to apply to certain mineral oils, when used for specific purposes, existing reduced rates of
excise duty or exemptions from excise duty, in accordance with the procedure provided for in Directive
92/81/EEC. Document 399D0880. Official Journal L 331, 23/12/1999 p. 73 – 77.
European Council (2000a) Guidelines for LIFE-Environment Demonstration Projects - Pursuant to article 4,
paragraph 4, of Regulation (EC) No 1655/2000 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning
the Financial Instrument for the Environment (LIFE). Document 300Y1027(01) Official Journal C 308,
27/10/2000 p. 0002.
European Council (2000b) Common Position 7/2000 adopted by the Council on 25 November 1999 with a
view to adopting Directive 2000/76/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Incineration
of Waste. Official Journal C25/17.
European Council (2000c) Directive 2000/53/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18
September 2000 on End-of-Life Vehicles - Commission Statements. Document 300L0053. Official
Journal L 269, 21/10/2000 p.34–43.
European Council (2001d) Proposals for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Waste
Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and the
Council on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment
[COM(2000)347 final - Official Journal C 365, 19.12.2000].
European Environmental Agency (1999) Making sustainability accountable: Eco-efficiency, resource
productivity and innovation. Topic report No 11/1999.
Eurostat (2005) Draft handbook for waste statistics. Meeting of the working group “Statistics of the
Environment,” sub-group “Waste,” on 12/04/2005. Joint Eurostat/EFTA group. WASTE WG 53 6.1 (2005)
Frosch R (1995) Industrial ecology: Adapting technology for a sustainable world. Environment 37 (10): 20.
Gardner G & Sampat P (1998) Mind over matter: Recasting the role of materials in our lives. Worldwatch
Paper 144, Worldwatch Institute.
Geller, E.S. 1981. “Waste Reduction and Resource Recovery: Strategies for Energy Conservation.” Chapter
5 in Advances in Environmental Psychology. Vol III. (A. Baum and J.E,.Singer. editors.Erlaum
Associates), Hillsday, New Jersey.
Geothermal Education Office URL: http://geothermal.marin.org/
Graedel TE & Allenby BR (1995) Industrial Ecology. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, USA.
Green Paper on Energy Efficiency or Doing More With Less COM(2005) 265, June 2005
Hasenson B (2004) The vague definition of waste hinders utilization. (In Finnish) Teollisuustieto 1-2, 2004.
Hilson, G. (2003) Defining ‘‘cleaner production’’ and ‘‘pollution prevention’’ in the mining context.
Minerals Engineering 16(4):305-321.
Jackson, T. 1991. “Grasping the Nettle: Some Remarks on the Challenge of Auditing for Clean(er)
production.” Invitational Expert Seminar: Environmental Auditing in Cleaner Production Strategies. 18-
19 April. Trolleholm Castle, Sweden.
Lewis, G. McD. and Brabec Elizabeth (2005) Regional land pattern assessment: development of a resource
efficiency measurement method. Landscape and Urban Planning 72(4): 281-296.
Lou, H.R., Huang, Y.L., 2000. Profitable pollution prevention: concept, fundamental & development. Plating
and Surface Finishing 87 (11), 59–66.
Lowell Center for Sustainable Production URL: http://www.uml.edu/centers/LCSP/
Lox F (prom.). (1994). Waste Management - Life Cycle Analysis of Packaging. Final Report. Study Realised
by the Consortium Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek, Belgian
Packaging Institute, for the European Commission, DG XI/A/4.

50
McDonough W & Braungart M (2002) Cradle to cradle. Remaking the way we make things. North Point
Press. Visit also: http://www.mbdc.com/
Ministry of Environment, Finland. (2004) Waste Act. 1072/1993; amendments up to 1063/2004.
Ministry of Environment, Finland. Information on the new waste strategy retrieved from the ministry’s
homepage http://www.ymparisto.fi on 21.2.2006
Meadows DH, Meadows DL & Randers J (1992) Beyond the Limits, Earthscan Publications, London, UK.
OECD 1997. Evaluating Economic Instruments for Environmental Policy. Paris.
OECD (1998) Waste Management Policy Group. Final Guidance Document for Distinguishing Waste from
Non-Waste. ENV/EPOC/WMP(98)1/REV1. Paris, 23-24 April 1998.
Overcash, M., 1997. Environmental management for the future. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society of London, Series A 355, 1299–1308.
Pekkarinen M (2004) The mining industry and sustainable development. Presentation at the Mining industry
days (Vuorimiespäivät) 26.03.2004
Pongrácz E (2002) Re-defining the concepts of waste and waste management: Evolving the theory of waste
management. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Process and Environmental Engineering, University of
Oulu, P.O.Box 4300, FIN-90014 Oulun yliopisto.
Pongrácz E & Pohjola VJ (1997) The Conceptual Model of Waste Management Proc. ENTREE’97,
November 12-14 1997, Sophia Antipolis, France. pp.65-77.
Pongrácz E & Pohjolast VJ (1999) Object Oriented Concepts and Definitions of Waste and Their Role in
Legislation. Proc. 1 International Conference on Solid Waste. Technology, Safety, Environment. Rome,
Italy, 7-9 April 1999.
Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and the Council on Waste COM(2005) 667 final
http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/waste/pdf/directive_waste_en.pdf
Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive of 11 March 2004 on the type-approval of motor
vehicles with regard to their re-usability, recyclability and recoverability and amending Council Directive
70/156/EEC.
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and Council on Shipments of Waste COM(2003)379
Proposal for a Directive European Parliament and Council on the management of waste from the extractive
industries COM(2003) 319
Proposal for a Directive European Parliament and Council on establishing a framework for the setting of
Eco-design requirements for Energy- Using Products and amending Council Directive 92/42/EEC
COM(2003)453
Rifkin J (1980) Entropy: A new world view. Viking Press, New York, USA.
Riemer J & Kristoffersen M (1999) Information on waste management practices. A proposed electronic
framework. European Environmental Agency, Copenhagen, Denmark.
United Nations Environmental Programme Division of Technology Industry and Economics (UNEP/DTIE):
Cleaner Production. URL: http://www.uneptie.org/cp
UNEP/DTIE: Financing Cleaner Production. URL: http://www.financingcp.org/
United Nations Environmental Programme Division of Technology Industry and Economics (2002) Profiting
from Cleaner Production. Towards Efficient Resource Management. URL:
http://www.financingcp.org/training/Booklet.pdf
US EPA (1990) Pollution Prevention Act. 42 U.S.C. 13101 and 13102, s/s et seq. (1990) United States
Environmental Protection Agency.
Van Berkel. R. et al 1997. “The Relationship between Cleaner Production and Industrial Ecology”. Journal
of Industrial Ecology. Vol. 1, no 1. Winter.
Vancini F (2000) Strategic waste prevention, OECD reference manual. OECD
ENV/EPOC/PPC(2000)5/FINAL Working party on Pollution Prevention and Control
WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development), 1995. “Achieving Eco-efficiency in
Business.” Report of WBCSD, Second Antwerp Eco-efficiency Workshop. 14-15 March. WBCSD,
Geneva.
vonWeizsäcker E, Lovins AB & Lovins LH (1997) Factor Four. The new report to the Club of Rome.
White Paper on the Strategy for a Future Chemicals Policy COM(2001) 88, February 2001
White paper on Food Safety COM(1999) 719, January 2000
WRI (World Resources Institute), et al 1997. Resource Flows: The Material Basis of Industrial Economies.
Washington, D.C.

51