Page 130 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

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Sustainable Development and Industrial Ecology
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• Plastic recycler: This recycler accepts 12 types of plastic, grinds it,
and sells the grind overseas. The company also manufactures plastic
pellets from scrap.
• Seafood processor and cold storage warehouse: This company processes
seafood and acts as a cold storage warehouse. It uses a great deal of
water and electricity.
• Chemical plant: This plant manufactures anhydrous hydrogen fluo-
ride. The major byproduct is CaSO 4 (gypsum). The company currently
gives away gypsum to the Mexican Department of Transportation
for use as road base. The gypsum is very pure and probably could be
used in other applications (e.g. wallboard, concrete, tiles).
• Manufacturer of magnetic ballasts: This company produces electronic
and magnetic ballasts. It currently landfills about 332 tons of waste
asphalt per year.
• Gypsum wallboard company: This EIP member, located in Houston,
is the only member not located in the Brownsville area. This wall-
board producer relies exclusively on synthetic gypsum as an input to
its wallboard production process.

EIP scenarios
In this section each of the five scenarios will be elaborated. The level
of interactions between companies will increase gradually as we go from
one scenario to the other until reaching a maximum level of interaction at
scenario 5.

Scenario 1
At baseline, very few symbiotic relationships exist between these compa-
nies as shown in Figure 3.4 and as follows:

• The refinery sells its residual oil to the asphalt company.
• The stone company sells limestone to the asphalt company.

Scenario 2
In this scenario, the existing EIP members implemented pollution prevention
activities independently from one another. This scenario is useful because it
helps in revealing the benefits and limitations of individual pollution pre-
vention efforts compared with the gains achievable by looking outside the
plant boundaries for waste reduction opportunities.
This scenario describes some pollution prevention and recycling oppor-
tunities that can provide economic and environmental benefits to the compa-
nies acting independently. Experts in cleaner production techniques identified
some of these opportunities during brief site visits to the companies.

• The discrete parts manufacturer introduces an aqueous cleaning sys-
tem and an oil/water separation system.