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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 article deals with the revision of the Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). The directive was implemented by the European Union (EU) in January 2003 in order to establish extended producer responsibility (EPR). According to some manufacturers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the EPR should be established by making every producer responsible for funding the management of their own waste products. In 2008, the European Council (EC) submitted proposals for changes in the directive.

Abstract: Producer responsibility and take-back legislation in Europe place responsibility on the manufactures for the recovery and recycling of end-of-life products. This will inevitably require the manufacturers to rethink the way products are designed and manufactured in order to improve their recyclability. This paper illustrates on the case of a fibre optic cable how this can be achieved in a practical and relatively easy way, leading to both environmental and economic benefits. The case study compares the current design the 96 fibre optic cable with several proposed design modifications with the aim of identifying the design option that would enable an easy end-of-life disassembly and recycling of component materials. The designs are evaluated on a life cycle basis for both economic and environmental impacts using the CHAin management of Materials and Products (CHAMP) methodology. CHAMP combines elements of process and design engineering with life cycle approaches to enable the user to explore technical, economic and environmental consequences of different material, process and technological options, including material recovery and recycling. CHAMP is therefore particularly well suited for addressing the requirements of the take-back and producer responsibility legislation. The results of LCA and life cycle costing obtained by using CHAMP show that cable re-design can reduce the environmental impacts by between 30 and 60% and can lead to a 40% reduction in economic costs. This is achieved by changing the internal structure of the cable, by removing some of the cable components (e.g. aluminium and organic gels) and by recycling some of the materials. Transport (including reverse logistics), processing and landfill also contribute to the overall impacts, but their contribution is less significant than that from the materials used to manufacture the cable. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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.

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.

The chill-on-demand system is a new technology designed to provide cooled products on demand, thereby avoiding chilled storage. It uses the cooling effect provided by endothermic desorption of carbon dioxide previously adsorbed onto a bed of activated carbon and has the potential to be applied to any type of product that needs to be cold at the point of consumption. The principles of life cycle engineering have been utilized to evaluate the overall environmental performance of one possible application of this technology: a self-chilling beverage can, with a steel outer can to contain the beverage and an inner aluminium can to contain the adsorbent. An attributional life cycle assessment has been undertaken considering all the life cycle stages of a self-chilling can: manufacture of each part of the beverage container, its utilization, collection of the used can, and management of the waste by reuse, recycling and landfilling. Activated carbon production is included in detail, to assess its contribution to the overall life cycle. The results are compared with those for conventional aluminium and steel beverage cans stored in two types of retail chiller: a single door refrigerator and a large open-front cooler. A sensitivity analysis explores alternative scenarios for activated carbon production and for recovery of the can components post-use for reuse or recycling. The results highlight the importance of using activated carbon produced from biomass by a process with efficient use of low-carbon electrical energy, energy recovery from waste streams and appropriate air pollution control, and of achieving high rates of recovery, re-use and recycling of the cans after use. The results suggest limited markets into which the product might be introduced, particularly where it would displace inefficient chilled storage in an electricity system with a high proportion of coal-fired generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]