Page 15 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

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Introduction
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implemented, would lead to cradle-to-cradle production and manufacturing
in all industrial sectors.
Perhaps the major problem industries have with current environmental
protection regulations is their cost and return. Pollution control and treatment,
and environmental protection procedures, are all considered very expensive
activities and, as such, they are seen as economic burdens and impediments to
further industrial development.
Indeed proper waste handling and management is posing a complex prob-
lem for the entire world. On the one hand, it can be highly costly, and on the
other hand, improper handling of waste can have harmful effects on life and
habitat and at the same time lead to depletion of our natural resources.
Because of the universality of this problem, any comprehensive solu-
tion should be appropriate and applicable in both developed (industrial) and
underdeveloped nations. And for any solution to be sustainable, it should
promise economic benefits, require available or obtainable technology, and
comply with the social and environmental norms within a given nation.
The main objective of this book is to conserve our natural resources by
attempting to reach a 100% utilization of all types of waste. It offers alter-
native production and waste management techniques that employ cradle-to-
cradle concepts and the methodologies of cleaner production and industrial
ecology. It is filled with case studies that demonstrate the applicability of these
techniques in most industrial sectors such as textile, food, oil and soap, etc.
Case studies were also implemented in the heavy industries such as petroleum,
iron and steel, cement, etc. Touristic activities are also included because they
are considered an industry that uses up natural resources and generates waste.
The traditional waste management hierarchy implemented in most
countries, which involves reduction, reuse, recycling, recovery, treatment, and
disposal, should now be modified to exclude treatment (especially thermal and
chemical) and disposal in landfills. Waste treatment converts harmful waste
into less harmful waste, but produces in the process an effluent that itself
becomes waste and must be disposed of in a landfill. A “disposal” of anything
means depletion of our natural resources, and may also lead to environmental
pollution (in the air, water, and soil). In contrast, recovery, as used in the hier-
archy above, attempts to convert waste into energy. It is a very expensive pro-
cedure that cannot be afforded by most countries. And thus throughout this
book, recovery will mean material recovery – for example, attempting to sepa-
rate waste oil from water employing gravity using a gravity oil separator (GOS)
technique, or employing air bubbles using a dissolved air flotation (DAF) tech-
nique. This book thus suggests a new hierarchy for waste management that
would apply cradle-to-cradle concepts in order to conserve natural resources.
Natural resources are becoming a very crucial issue for sustainable
development because finding new sources of raw material has proven to be
very costly and difficult. Waste disposal has very significant impacts on the
environment since it may cause contamination in the air, soil, and/or water.
In order to make waste management more sustainable, it should shift from