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Climate change and resource scarcity are just two of the planetary crises that make radical socio‐economic change essential if human society is to be sustainable. Chemical engineering is a skill‐set that can make a unique contribution to the socio‐economic transition, going beyond new technological processes to provide a system‐level understanding of economic activities from the perspective of industrial ecology. This paper provides an example by applying process system analysis to the use, re‐use, remanufacturing, and recycling of material products. Unlike the 'circular economy' approach, the analysis starts from the stock of goods and materials in use in the economy and models the flows required to build up, operate, and maintain the stock. Metrics are developed to account for the effect of stock growth on demand for materials. The significance of the analysis is illustrated for four metals whose industrial ecologies are at different levels of maturity: lead, copper, aluminium, and lithium. Extending product life through re‐use and remanufacturing is crucial for resource efficiency, using labour to reduce demand for energy and non‐renewable resources. If end‐of‐life products are processed to recover individual elements, the cost penalties increase rapidly with the decreasing concentration of valuable materials and increasing number of materials in the mixture. Thus, shifting from a linear economy (make−use−dispose) to closed‐loop use of materials involves rethinking product design to reduce the number of materials used. Material substitution to reduce demand for scarce materials needs to look beyond equivalence of function to consider changing patterns of use in the regenerative economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environmental and resource crises that confront human life on earth demand changes to the whole socio‐economic metabolic system. The changes will affect all aspects of life, including the practice of chemical engineering. The historical association of the profession with the fossil carbon economy means that the expertise that makes up chemical engineering must be re‐examined and repurposed urgently if the discipline is to play a full role in the socio‐economic transition. In this article, we review the historical development of chemical engineering to identify its unique features and find ways in which it can change to meet the challenge. A pattern of 30‐year cycles in the development of the discipline is revealed, showing the way it has built up by incorporating approaches from other disciplines and also developing a unique set of skills and knowledge. Chemical engineering as taught needs to prepare graduates to operate under the kind of social contract embodied in declarations by professional bodies. We propose ways in which the expertise comprising chemical engineering can be applied in the 'just transition' to a less unsustainable society, including new approaches to plant and process design and also applications 'outside the pipe' to environmental modelling and industrial ecology. The unsustainability crisis results from a history of poor public and private decisions, so examination of the different types of decisions is timely. Specific roles for chemical engineers in deliberative decision processes are identified, including enhanced emphasis on risk and precaution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emissions derived from human digestion of food and subsequent excretion are very relevant from a life cycle perspective, and yet they are often omitted from food life cycle assessment (LCA) studies. This article offers a simple model to allocate and include these emissions in LCAs of specific foodstuffs. The model requires basic food composition values and calculates the mass and energy balance for carbon, water, nutrients (mainly nitrogen [N] and phosphorus [P]), and other inorganic substances through different excretion paths: breathing, feces, and urine. In addition to direct excretion, the model also allocates some auxiliary materials and energy related to toilet use, such as flushing and washing and drying hands. Wastewater composition is also an output of the model, enabling water treatment to be modeled in LCA studies. The sensitivity of the model to food composition is illustrated with different food products, and the relative importance of excretion in a product's life cycle is shown with an example of broccoli. The results show that this model is sensitive to food composition and thus useful for assessing the environmental consequences of shifts in diet. From a life cycle perspective, the results show that postconsumption nutrient emissions may dominate the impacts on eutrophication potential, and they illustrate how the carbon cycle is closed with the human emissions after food preparation and consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various papers published within this issue, including one by Karn on industrial ecology and another by Eckelman and colleagues on green chemistry.

Discusses the concept of industrial ecology in Poland. Foreign institutions that introduced industrial ecology in courses in the country; Details of the National Ecological Policy for 2003-2006 action plan; Waste management plan being prepared by regional and local authorities; Emphasis given to pollution prevention rather than pollution management under the Polish environmental protection system.

Discusses the implementation of policies on extended producer responsibility for the recycling of their end-of-life products, based on the waste electrical and electronic equipment directive of the European Union. Provisions of the directive; Conflicts between different Directorates General regarding the provisions; Changes in the policy on eco-labeling.

Discusses the problems associated with industrial ecology. Objectives of waste management legislation; Views on the legal definition of waste; Ruling on the use of Cemfuel.

This article explains that concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in industrial ecology. The concept means that manufacturers retain responsibility for their end-of-life products, which is expected to induce them to address the problem of reengineering and designing for dismantling, reuse and recycling. The implementation of EPR in the European Union has been fraught with difficulties. This was highlighted by the experience in Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment directive of the European Union.

Ammunition that has reached its end of life or become obsolete is considered hazardous waste due to the energetic material content that must be decommissioned. One of the technologies to dispose of ammunition involves the use of incinerators with sophisticated gas treatment systems; however, this disposal process has important limitations in terms of incinerator capacity, energy requirements and high costs. This article assesses the potential primary energy avoided and environmental benefits arising from the valorization of energetic material from military ammunition by incorporating it into civil emulsion explosives, as an alternative to destructive disposal. This approach follows the circular economy principle, as articulated inter alia in BS 8001:2007, by giving a new service to a residue through its incorporation into a new product. A prospective life-cycle model is implemented based on primary data from previous studies on the conventional disposal process and on the production of emulsion explosive. The model applies system expansion to calculate the environmental burdens avoided when energetic material from ammunition is incorporated into civil explosives. The results show that re-using ammunition through valorization of energetic material greatly reduces the environmental impacts in all categories compared to the conventional disposal process. The benefits arise mainly from avoiding the incineration and flue gas treatment processes in ammunition disposal, and displacing production of civil explosive components with the energetic material from ammunition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the CHAINET-European Network on Chain Analysis for Environmental Decision Support, a concerted action on industrial ecology in Europe. Assumptions-related business cycles associated with the CHAINET; Details on the development of the project.

This study investigates the potential integration of a dairy farm and a greenhouse into an eco-industrial system to promote waste-to-energy and waste-to-material exchanges. Natural gas consumption is substituted by renewable biogas generated from anaerobic digestion (AD) of the dairy manure; CO2 for plant enrichment in greenhouses is supplied by biogas combustion and the digestate (digestion residue) from digesters is used as animal bedding, plant growing media and liquid fertilizers. A life cycle analysis (LCA) was conducted to quantify the environmental impacts of the eco-industrial system in comparison to the conventional agriculture practices. The results show that the integrated system reduces non-renewable energy consumption, climate change impact, acidification, respiratory effects from organic emissions, and human toxicity by more than 40%. If the digestate surplus is treated as a waste, the integrated system shows an increase in eutrophication and respiratory effects from inorganic emissions while all the analyzed impacts are reduced if the digestate can be used for substituting chemical fertilizers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]