Page 146 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Ch004-P373623.qxd 3/26/07 4:46 PM Page 125

Chapter 4

Sustainable Development and

Environmental Reform

4.1 Introduction
Ever since the Earth Summit of Rio de Janeiro in 1992, much has been writ-
ten and continues to be written about “sustainability”. Meanwhile, we have
lost the ability to measure sustainability because we need to think first how
we can develop sustainability and then develop indicator(s) to measure it (or
a percentage of it). Our real environmental and economical problem in this
century is that the development of science and technology has increased
human capacity to extract resources from nature, and then process them and,
use them, but it has not returned them to the environment for regeneration –
the “cradle-to-grave” concept. A renewable natural resources concept is a
must for sustainability, i.e. the word “disposal” should be removed from our
daily dictionary. Unsustainable human activities are creating an open loop
“cradle-to-grave” system that cannot continue and has one day to reach a
conclusion. Closing the loop for renewable resources is the role of changing
the “cradle-to-grave” concept to a “cradle-to-cradle” concept as discussed in
Chapter 1.
The tool for sustainable human economic systems is the life cycle
assessment according to the “cradle-to-cradle” concept and not the “cradle-
to-grave” concept. A new hierarchy for waste management to approach the
“cradle-to-cradle” concept was developed at The American University in
Cairo in 2001 and upgraded in 2003, and is called the “7Rs rule or 7Rs cradle-
to-cradle approach”. The concept starts by developing Regulations to Reduc-
tion at the source, Reuse, Recycle, Recovery by sustainable treatment for
possible material recovery (not waste-to-energy recovery). The last two Rs
are Rethinking and Renovation where people should rethink about their
waste (qualitatively and quantitatively) before taking action for treatment or
disposal and develop a renovative/innovative technique to solve the waste

125