Is industrual waste industrial loss?

    Is industrual waste industrial loss?


        By: Carlos A. Resendiz

        Industrial production pushed forward society by the large production of consumption goods. But what happens with the waste produced? How many waste is produced consequently of these goods? Is there a balance is the production of these goods sustainable for planet earth? Large amount of waste is produced by the process of industrialization. The production in masses have a negative impact in the environment. The wastes can be summed as wastewater, solid materials, byproducts, and waste gases. In China, this is not an issue anymore. China has incentivized the reuse of industrial wastes as primary source of production. ‘‘Comprehensive Utilization of Resources (CUR)’’ policy give rise to the recycle of waste materials for industrial production. Recent studies compared life cycle inventories for the same product from baseline and CUR- certified production to determine the benefits of this policy. The results showed a positive impact in the reduction of pollution due to industrial waste. More than 50 million tons of solid waste, reduction of 161 petajoules of energy, and 23 million tons of CO₂ is the result for this change to ‘‘Green Industrial Production’’. This should be example for more nations in order to decrease the pollution rates due to industrialization around the world. China has started the change, more nations should follow these steps in order to develop a more sustainable global environment.

Fig 1. Sketch of how the industrial waste is recovered 

by ''Greening Industrial Production through waste recovery''

Reference

Zhu, J., & Chertow, M. R. (2016). Greening Industrial Production through Waste Recovery: “Comprehensive Utilization of Resources” in China. Environmental Science & Technology Environ. Sci. Technol., 50(5), 2175-2182. doi:10.1021/acs.est.5b05098