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Source Reduction
Source reduction is activities designed to reduce the volume, mass, or toxicity of products throughout the life cycle. It includes the design and manufacture, use, and disposal of products with minimum toxic content, minimum volume of material, and/or a longer useful life. Synonyms Pollution prevention and toxics use reduction are also called source reduction because they address the use of hazardous substances at the source. Examples * Reusable packaging - for example the use of a reusable shopping bag at the grocery store; although it uses more material than a single-use disposable bag, the material per use is less. * Overpackaging - Some packaging uses more materials than is necessary for product containment and protection. Redesign can often reduce the size and materials usage in packaging. Procedures Source reduction is achieved through improvements in design, production, use, reuse, recycling, and through environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP). A Life-cycle assess ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Service Life
A product's service life is its period of use in service. Several related terms describe more precisely a product's life, from the point of manufacture, storage, and distribution, and eventual use. Service life has been defined as "a product life, product's total life in use from the point of sale to the point of discard" and distinguished from replacement life, "the period after which the initial purchaser returns to the shop for a replacement". Determining a product's expected service life as part of business policy (product life cycle management) involves using tools and calculations from maintainability and Reliability engineering, reliability analysis. Service life represents a commitment made by the item's manufacturer and is usually specified as a median. It is the time that any manufactured item can be expected to be "serviceable" or Product support, supported by its Original equipment manufacturer, manufacturer. Service life is not to be confused with ''shelf life'', wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Litter
Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. Litter can also be used as a verb; to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, food wrappers, cardboard boxes or plastic bottles on the ground, and leave them there indefinitely or for other people to dispose of as opposed to disposing of them correctly. Large and hazardous items of rubbish such as tires, electrical appliances, electronics, batteries and large industrial containers are sometimes dumped in isolated locations, such as national forests and other public lands. It is a human impact on the environment and remains a serious environmental problem in many countries. Litter can exist in the environment for long periods of time before decomposition and be transported over large distances into the world's oceans. Litter can affect the quality of life. Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Ecology
Industrial ecology (IE) is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modelled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resources into products and services which can be bought and sold to meet the needs of humanity. Industrial ecology seeks to quantify the material flows and document the industrial processes that make modern society function. Industrial ecologists are often concerned with the impacts that industrial activities have on the environment, with use of the planet's supply of natural resources, and with problems of waste disposal. Industrial ecology is a young but growing multidisciplinary field of research which combines aspects of engineering, economics, sociology, toxicology and the natural sciences. Industrial ecology has been defined as a "systems-based, multidisciplinary discourse that seeks to understand emergent behavior of complex integrate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waste Minimisation
Waste minimisation is a set of processes and practices intended to reduce the amount of waste produced. By reducing or eliminating the generation of harmful and persistent wastes, waste minimisation supports efforts to promote a more sustainable society.. Waste minimisation involves redesigning products and processes and/or changing societal patterns of consumption and production. The most environmentally resourceful, economically efficient, and cost effective way to manage waste often is to not have to address the problem in the first place. Managers see waste minimisation as a primary focus for most waste management strategies. Proper waste treatment and disposal can require a significant amount of time and resources; therefore, the benefits of waste minimisation can be considerable if carried out in an effective, safe and sustainable manner. Traditional waste management focuses on processing waste after it is created, concentrating on re-use, recycling, and waste-to-ener ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waste
Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste product may become a by-product, joint product or resource through an invention that raises a waste product's value above zero. Examples include municipal solid waste (household trash/refuse), hazardous waste, wastewater (such as sewage, which contains bodily wastes ( feces and urine) and surface runoff), radioactive waste, and others. Definitions What constitutes waste depends on the eye of the beholder; one person's waste can be a resource for another person. Though waste is a physical object, its generation is a physical and psychological process. The definitions used by various agencies are as below. United Nations Environment Program According to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Throwaway Society
The throw-away society is a generalised description of human social concept strongly influenced by consumerism, whereby the society tends to use items once only, from disposable packaging, and consumer products are not designed for reuse or lifetime use. The term describes a critical view of overconsumption and excessive production of short-lived or disposable items over durable goods that can be repaired, but at its origins, it was viewed as a positive attribute. Origin of the term In its 1 August 1955 issue, ''Life'' published an article titled "Throwaway Living". This article has been cited as the source that first used the term "throw-away society". Rise of packaging waste The last century of economic growth saw both increased production and increased product waste. Between 1906 (the start of New York City waste collections) and 2005 there was a tenfold rise in "product waste" (packaging and old products), from per person per year. Containers and packaging now represent 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Service Life
A product's service life is its period of use in service. Several related terms describe more precisely a product's life, from the point of manufacture, storage, and distribution, and eventual use. Service life has been defined as "a product life, product's total life in use from the point of sale to the point of discard" and distinguished from replacement life, "the period after which the initial purchaser returns to the shop for a replacement". Determining a product's expected service life as part of business policy (product life cycle management) involves using tools and calculations from maintainability and Reliability engineering, reliability analysis. Service life represents a commitment made by the item's manufacturer and is usually specified as a median. It is the time that any manufactured item can be expected to be "serviceable" or Product support, supported by its Original equipment manufacturer, manufacturer. Service life is not to be confused with ''shelf life'', wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Remanufacturing
Remanufacturing is "the rebuilding of a product to specifications of the original manufactured product using a combination of reused, repaired and new parts". It requires the repair or replacement of worn out or obsolete components and modules. Parts subject to degradation affecting the performance or the expected life of the whole are replaced. Remanufacturing is a form of a product recovery process that differs from other recovery processes in its completeness: a remanufactured machine should match the same customer expectation as new machines. In 1995, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) implemented the Comprehensive Procurement Guideline (CPG) program to promote waste reduction and resource conservation through the use of materials recovered from solid waste, and to ensure that the materials collected in recycling programs will be used again in the manufacture of new products. The EPA is required to designate products that are or can be made with recovered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Product Life
Product lifetime or product lifespan is the time interval from when a product is sold to when it is discarded. Product lifetime is slightly different from service life because the latter consider only the effective time the product is used. It is also different from product economic life which refers to the point where maintaining a product is more expensive than replacing it; from product technical life which refers to the maximum period during which a product has the physical capacity to function; and from the functional life which is the time a product should last regardless of external intervention to increase its lifespan. Product lifetime represent an important area of enquiry with regards to product design, the circular economy and sustainable development. This is because products, with the materials involved in their design, production, distribution, use and disposal (across their life cycle), embody carbon due to the energy involved in these processes. Therefore, if pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-waste
Waste minimisation is a set of processes and practices intended to reduce the amount of waste produced. By reducing or eliminating the generation of harmful and persistent wastes, waste minimisation supports efforts to promote a more sustainable society.. Waste minimisation involves redesigning products and processes and/or changing societal patterns of consumption and production. The most environmentally resourceful, economically efficient, and cost effective way to manage waste often is to not have to address the problem in the first place. Managers see waste minimisation as a primary focus for most waste management strategies. Proper waste treatment and disposal can require a significant amount of time and resources; therefore, the benefits of waste minimisation can be considerable if carried out in an effective, safe and sustainable manner. Traditional waste management focuses on processing waste after it is created, concentrating on re-use, recycling, and waste-to-ener ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miniwaste
Miniwaste was a European project operated from January 2010 to December 2012, designed to "bring bio-waste back to life". In other words, it was intended to demonstrate that it is possible to significantly reduce the amount of bio-waste at a local level. The project was co-funded by the LIFE+ programme of the European Commission. The project emphasized the efficiency and sustainability of bio-waste reduction actions at source, in particular by organising demonstration actions and trainings for the population, and by offering a better way of evaluating and controlling waste prevention. Main goals The project endeavors to demonstrate, in accordance with the recent Waste Framework Directive, that it is possible to significantly reduce the amount of organic waste (also called "bio-waste", covering both food and green waste) at the source in a sustainable way, and to monitor actions for waste reduction in an efficient manner. The Miniwaste project has four main objectives: * to gathe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
