Page 151 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Ch004-P373623.qxd 3/26/07 4:46 PM Page 130
Sustainable Industrial Design and Waste Management
130
are frequently surprised at the cost reductions achievable through the adoption
of cleaner production techniques. Frequently, minimal or no capital expenditure
is required to achieve worthwhile gains, with fast payback periods. Waste hand-
ling and charges, raw material usage, and insurance premiums can often be cut,
along with potential risks. It is obvious that cleaner production techniques are
good business for industry because they:

• Reduce waste disposal cost.
• Reduce raw material cost.
• Reduce health, safety and environment (HSE) damage cost.
• Improve public relations/image.
• Improve company’s performance.
• Improve local and international market competitiveness.
• Help comply with environmental protection regulations.

On a broader scale, cleaner production can help alleviate the serious and
increasing problems of air and water pollution, ozone depletion, global warm-
ing, landscape degradation, solid and liquid wastes, resource depletion, acid-
ification of the natural and built environment, visual pollution, and reduced
bio-diversity.
The EMS can provide a company with a decision-making structure and
action plan to bring cleaner production into the company’s strategy, manage-
ment, and day-to-day operations as shown in Figure 4.3. As a result, EMS
will provide a tool for cleaner production implementation and pave the road
toward it. So, integrating cleaner production techniques with EMS as shown
in Figure 4.3 will help the system to approach zero pollution and maximize
the benefits where both CP benefits and EMS benefits will be integrated
together.
Integrating CP strategies within the EMS (El-Haggar, 2003a; El-Haggar
and Sakr, 2006) promotes their implementation and compliance with envi-
ronmental regulations. The EMS provides a decision-making structure and
action plan to incorporate cleaner production strategies into the company’s
management – plan strategy and day-to-day operations, therefore approaching
minimum pollution levels and combining CP and EMS benefits. Cleaner pro-
duction can be incorporated into the environmental policy of the organization
as a commitment from the top management to encourage the organization to
look after CP techniques everywhere as a solution to any environmental prob-
lem. During the planning phase of EMS, CP should be the main tool to achieve
the objectives and targets.

Life cycle assessment/cradle-to-cradle
In the proposed framework structure for sustainable development shown in
Figure 4.1, the current life cycle assessment (LCA) techniques will be modi-
fied to evaluate industrial activities adopting cradle-to-cradle concepts as