Design for the Environment ppt

Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 1 Design for the Environment Version 1.0 (2005-07-10) Filippo A. Salustri, Ryerson University, salustri@ryerson.ca Emilijan Mirceski, Ryerson University, i@emilijan.com Christopher Bouma, Ryerson Unversity, cbouma@ryerson.ca Preface This module presents main issues surrounding Design for the Environment. Every product must be dealt in some way at the end of its life. Main approaches (reduction, reuse, remanufacture, recycling, and disposal) will be discussed. Each method will be explained cost wise and environment wise. Examples and case studies are included. Sustainable design as a method is also discussed. Keywords: design, environment, reduction, reuse, remanufacture, recycling, disposal. The target audience for this module includes 1 st and 2 nd year undergraduate engineering students. The objective of this module is to introduce the students the following topics: 1. The extent of environmental impact 2. Methods of end of life treatment 3. Design issues for DFE The context of the module is intended to be easily understandable to 1 st year undergraduate engineering students. Internet references are used extensively. Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 2 Table of Contents Preface 1 Table of Contents 2 1. Background 3 2. Design for the environment 3 2.1. The extent of environmental impact 3 2.2. Methods of end of life treatment 5 2.2.1 Brief description 5 2.2.2 Design for the Environment and Business 5 2.3 Sustainable design 6 2.4 Reduction 7 2.5. Replacement 10 2.6. Reuse 12 2.7. Remanufacturing 12 2.8. Recycling 13 2.9. Disposal 16 2.10 The Environment and You 17 3. Environmental assessment practices 18 3.1 Conclusions 18 3.2 Discussion questions 18 References 20 Appendix A: Stages and Gates 22 Appendix B: Environmental Assessment Checklists 23 Environmental assessment sample: paper versus plastic 27 Manufacturability 27 Equipment 29 In Summary 35 Discussion 35 Background Information 37 References for the Case Study 40 Paper versus Plastic Datasheets 41 Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 3 1. Background All things are part of systems. The systems can be large as the universe or as small as the parts of an atom, or they can be somewhere in-between (e.g. a car engine). Things in a system tend to balance always. There can be numerous exchanges between matter and energy with whatever is beyond a system, but only one net change value: zero. Consider our planet Earth for example; it is perfectly balanced system. As a system, it had quite long time to balance and rebalance itself because of the natural laws of physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, etc. Any change will cause the Earth to react and seek a new point of balance, even if this means irreparable damage to some part of the Earth system. The ecosphere (that region of the Earth where life exists) is a part of the Earth system, which may either benefit or suffer from a change to the Earth. We humans, who are also parts of the Earth system, can cause changes to which the Earth system will naturally respond in ways that will or will not benefit us, but in either case, the response is inevitable – we cannot prevent the Earth from responding to changes we cause. We are now at a point where humanity has the capacity to cause such significant changes, that the response of the Earth system will make it uninhabitable for humans. Consider the ozone layer [1] for example. More Chlorofluorocarbons 1 (CFC) in the air means less ozone. 2 This is both good and bad. It's good because it decreases the amount of ozone inhaled. It is bad because depleted ozone increases UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface. The CFC balance itself is, profit (through the use of CFC-based products) vs. DNA mutations (through ozone depletion). One may argue that limiting technology (in this case, CFC-based technology) is good, to prevent increased levels of, say, skin cancer. On the other hand, one may also argue that development of new technologies will find a way to avert the problems. The goal of this chapter is to show that there is always a way to engineer products such that the resulting environmental balance will not negatively impact our living environment. First, let us examine what our technology can in fact do. 2. Design for the environment 2.1. The extent of environmental impact In recent centuries, humanity’s ability to create and destroy has increased very much. Leaving aside destructive uses of the technology, one can say that even projects undertaken with the best intentions sometimes turn out to be highly destructive. Sometimes this happens because of bad design; other times, the designer simply cannot foresee what level of impact the project will have (perhaps due to insufficient data). In all of these circumstances, where projects contribute to the destructive pool of activities, there is a unwritten rule that it is much easier to just let things happen, then to try to repair the damage later. Unfortunately, it is rarely possible to bring things back to their initial conditions. This means that errors accumulate, and balance slowly moves toward unknown points, until a “disaster” happens. “A disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of society, causing widespread human, material or environmental losses which exceed the ability of affected society to cope on its own resources.” [2] The following table shows some of the effects that can accumulate in disastrous ways. 1 Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are nontoxic, nonflammable chemicals containing atoms of carbon, chlorine, and fluorine. They are used in the manufacture of aerosol sprays, blowing agents for foams and packing materials, as solvents, and as refrigerants. CMDL, http://www.cmdl.noaa.gov/noah/publictn/elkins/cfcs.html . 2 A single chlorine atom can destroy 100,000 ozone molecules. WordWise, http://www.worldwise.com/recreffreeza.html . Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 4 Summary material from GEO-3 1972-2002, “Past and Present” [3] Land • There are 2 220 million more mouths to feed in 2002 than there were in 1972. • Over 10 per cent, between 25 and 30 million hectares, of the world's irrigated lands are classed as severely degraded because of salinization – a build up of salts. Around 2 billion hectares of soil, equal to 15 per cent of the Earth's land cover or an area bigger than the United States and Mexico combined is now classed as degraded as a result of human activities. Freshwater • Around half of the world's rivers are seriously depleted and polluted. About 60 per cent of the world's largest 227 rivers have been fragmented strongly or moderately by dams and other engineering works. • Two billion people, around one-third of the world's population, depend on groundwater supplies. In some countries, such as parts of India, China, West Asia, including the Arabian Peninsula, the former Soviet Union, and the western United States, groundwater levels are falling because of various human activities 3 . • Around 1.1 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.4 billion to improved sanitation, mainly in Africa and Asia. • Water-related disease costs break down like this: Two billion people are at risk from malaria alone, with 100 million affected at any one time and up to 2 million deaths annually. There are about 4 billion cases of diarrhoea and 2.2 million deaths a year, equivalent to 20 jumbo jets crashing everyday. Forests and Biodiversity • Forests cover about one third of the Earth's land surface or 3.866 billion hectares. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the Earth’s forested area has shrunk by 2.4 per cent since 1990. The biggest losses have been in Africa where 52.6 million hectares or 0.7 per cent of its forest cover has vanished in the past decade. • By the end of 2000, about 2 per cent of forests had been certified for sustainable forest management under schemes such as those operated by the Forest Stewardship Council. Most of these are in Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the United States. More are scheduled to be certified. • By 1994, an estimated 37 per cent of the global human population was living within 60 kilometres of the coast. This is more than the number of people alive on the planet in 1950. 4 • Other threats to the oceans include climate change, oil spills, discharges of heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and litter. Sedimentation, because of coastal developments, agriculture and deforestation, has become a major global threat to coral reefs particularly in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and South and Southeast Asia. • Just under a third of the world's fish stocks are now ranked as depleted, overexploited, or 3 Groundwater depletion can result from high water usage in combination with high rates of population growth. Environment Canada, http://www.on.ec.gc.ca/solec/pdf/societal_indicators.pdf. 4 Question: How does this relates to the global warming and rises in ocean level? Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 5 recovering as a result of over-fishing fuelled by subsidies estimated as high as US$20 billion annually. Atmosphere • Depletion of the ozone layer, which protects life from damaging ultra violet light, has now reached record levels. In September 2000, the ozone hole over Antarctica covered more than 28 million square kilometres. 5 • Concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main gas linked with global warming, currently stand at 370 parts per million or 30 per cent higher than in 1750. Concentrations of other greenhouse gases, such as methane and halocarbons, have also risen. • Asia and the Pacific emitted 2,167 million tons of carbon dioxide in 1998, followed by Europe at 1,677 million tons; North America, 1,614 million tons; Latin America and the Caribbean, 365 million tons; Africa, 223 million tons; and West Asia, 187 million tons. 2.2. Methods of end of life treatment 2.2.1 Brief description As can be seen from the excerpt above, industry had a global impact; there is almost no place on earth that is not affected by industry. There are various approaches to minimize the impact on the environment caused by various technological products and processes. These approaches can be divided into two main groups: 1. Sustainable design considerations 2. End of life considerations (Reduction, Reuse, Remanufacturing, Recycling, and Disposal) In order to illustrate these approaches, let us consider a “perfect” automobile as an example. If the automobile were sustainable, it should power itself with solar power (cheap and always available), there would be no waste, the car itself would be easy to build, affordable, with minimal resources taken from the environment and little if any operational impact on the environment. Since it would run on solar energy, the more efficient the solar cells are, the less need for them, so there can be reduction is solar panel surface. (Or rather, reductions in raw materials that must be taken from the environment for solar panel construction). When synthetic wrappings for seats become damaged, they can be reused as car floor rugs. When the engines get old and not fully efficient, they can be remanufactured by replacing certain old parts (but not the whole engine itself) therefore cheaply extending engines life. When the synthetic floor rugs become unusable, the material itself can be recycled, and used again for seat wrappings. Finally, after 20 years of driving the car, it will become old model, and thus one can dispose it by spraying it with special chemical, thus the car will dissolve into environment friendly materials. (Reference [18] gives a directory listing of all the companies that are concerning themselves with environmental issues.) 2.2.2 Design for the Environment and Business DFE methods create jobs and are good for economy [4]. Recently, many countries have demonstrated that, when the economy orients itself toward environmental approaches to stated problems, job opportunities through recycling tend to increase as much as 20 times more that through conventional (e.g. land-filling) methods. This emerges from various needs, ranging from handling the recycling process itself to handling newly produced materials and reengineering 5 As a comparison, Antarctica’s total area is about 14.2 million square kilometers in summer. Gander Academy, http://www.stemnet.nf.ca/CITE/antgeneral.htm. Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 6 them. A recent report from Japan [4] predicts that a 10% increase in GDP can be achieved through recycling instead of waste management, and would result in $600 billion in savings. 2.3 Sustainable design What is Sustainable Design? Figure 1: Sustainable design connectivity Sustainable design closes the loop between product development and the societal and cultural directives that drive the needs for new products. While the closed-loop nature of the response of product introduction to society has been implied thought the history of engineering, sustainable design is the first real effort to codify it as rules that can be directly used to improve design engineering with respect to those societal needs. Sustainability is about engineering products that balance two opposing forces. In engineering and in business, there forces are slightly different, but interrelated. In engineering, one must balance the benefits of a product to users against the impact of the product on the environment, during all stages of its life cycle, from manufacturing through to disposal. In business, the balance is between the sellable value of a product versus the cost of producing it and selling it and the costs arising from environmental regulation and the negative impact on corporate image and prestige in the public awareness. The focus of this module is on the engineering aspects of sustainable design; however, one cannot completely ignore the business aspects, because engineering happens in a business context. Definition of sustainable design "Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" - Bruntland commission [5]. Goals of sustainable design (from Hannover Principles [6] and Environmental Protection Agency [7]): 1. Insist on the rights of humanity and nature to co-exist. 2. Recognize interdependence of nature and humanity. 3. Respect relationships between spirit and matter. 4. Accept responsibility for the consequences of design. 5. Create safe objects of long-term value. 6. Eliminate the concept of waste. 7. Rely on natural energy flows. 8. Understand the limitations of design. Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 7 9. Seek constant improvement by sharing knowledge. 10. Pollution Prevention: Consider a product or service's environmental impact early in the purchasing decision process. 11. Multiple Attributes: Targeting a single environmental attribute can obscure other environmental impacts that might cause equal or greater damage. 12. Life-Cycle Perspective: Consider potential environmental impacts at all stages of the product or service's life cycle, starting with raw materials acquisition, through manufacturing, packaging, delivery, distribution, use, maintenance, and disposal. 13. Magnitude of Impact: Consider the scale (global vs. local), the permanence of a product or service's environmental impact, and the degree to which an impact is reversible. 14. Local Conditions: Factor in where and how a product or service is used when evaluating environmental impact. 15. Competition: Incorporate environmental attributes of products and services in competition among vendors. 16. Product Attribute Claims: Examine product attribute claims carefully and rely on more than one information source to evaluate environmental attributes Sustainable development also involves the simultaneous pursuit of economic prosperity, environmental quality, and social equity [8]. Companies aiming for sustainability need to perform not against a single, financial bottom line, but against this “triple bottom line.” As one can see, sustainable design can have many meanings; but in all of them, there is some similarity. It is: "The design should try to minimize the resources taken from the environment, minimize affected areas of activity, minimize waste, and try to totally exclude long-term environmental impact". Sustainable design is used in designing solar powered houses; these houses depend on the conventional power grids only few percents a year. Sustainable design is also used in designing small electrical generators that can generate electricity from wind and water, for distant households. 2.4 Reduction Waste reduction, also called source reduction, is the prevention of waste at the source [9]. Also called pollution prevention, this is more than pollution control: it seeks to eliminate the causes of pollution, rather than to treat the pollution once it has been created. It involves continual improvement through design, and through technological, operational, and behavioural changes. [18] There are many approaches to waste reduction, the most common of which are: Increase product durability. Durability is determined by manufacturing but influenced by consumers (i.e. by refusing to purchase poorly made or non-repairable items). This is typically the case for products with long lifetimes. For products with shorter lifetimes, increases in durability generate waste as unsold products (because existent ones are not wearing out). Reduce the amount of material per product. This relates to all materials, including (and especially) packaging materials. In the case of the packaging, for example, it was recently concluded that the packaging accounted for 64 million tons, or 33% of all garbage in the state of Pennsylvania [16]. Decrease consumption. Avoiding disposable products in favour of reparable or reusable ones. Manufacture smartly. Decrease manufacturing risk by improving manufacturing practices, and cost by taking advantage of advancements in materials science and manufacturing technology. (This means there is always call for new employees with training and experience in the latest Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 8 materials and manufacturing technologies. It might not be as glamorous as working on the “top floor”, but there is excellent job security.) Also, increase manufacturing speed by improving product design for fast manufacture and optimizing the production line, and enhance the safety of the product’s use via “design for safety” and paying particular attention to documentation and manuals. The real utility in reduction is in its scalability: small “personal” reductions can lead to dramatic national improvements. For example, if each person in Canada (population: 31.5 million [10]) could reduce their energy usage by $5/month, Canada would save close to $2 billion. Such an energy usage reduction may be achieved in many ways, ranging from products that are designed to conserve electricity in offices (ever wonder why those office towers are lit up so brightly at night when no one’s there?), to reduction in size of various machines (e.g. smaller cars). CASE 1: NEOMAX [11] NEOMAX is very strong iron-boron magnet (an artificial material), which has a higher magnetic efficiency than most other magnets, therefore contributing to resource and energy reduction. The need for stronger magnets is constantly increasing as the technology progresses. Consider the following applications. • At least 3% improvement in efficiency in automotive engine generators. • Up to 20% improvement in the electrical efficiency of air conditioners. • Eliminates the need for liquid helium cooling systems in MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machines, greatly reducing system size and therefore price. The savings become evident when one considers the huge “installed base” of the products noted above, and the potential for saving human life (with the MRI). Many approaches to waste reduction focus on educating the “buying public” because if people preferred to buy products that minimised waste production, then companies would make such products to respond to market need. For example, in [16], it is recommended that waste Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 9 reduction start at the shopping centre. When one goes shopping, one should follow these guidelines: Buy durable products instead of those that are disposable or cheaply made. Example: prefer “real” photographic cameras to “disposable” ones. Try to repair/restore used items before replacing them. Buy items you can re-use. Re-using margarine tubs to freeze foods or pack lunches, for instance, reduces the need for foil or plastic wrap. Reusing textbooks saves on paper. Buy items you can recycle locally through curb side collection or recycling centres. Avoid excess packaging when choosing product brands. Buy products in bulk, but also buy just what you need; larger sizes reduce the amount of packaging, but smaller sizes reduce leftover waste. Standardization in processes also ensures that the most effective, reliable, and environment- friendly ones will be chosen. An excellent example of this is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) [19]. This group develops standards for a variety of industry processes; different standards address different processes. The following examples are based mainly on ISO 14001 (Environmental Management Systems, specification with guidance for use) [21]. Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 10 CASE 2: Improvements in hospitals after embracing ISO 14001 [20] St. Mary’s Hospital (Kitchener, Ontario) • Proper waste segregation has significantly reduced air emissions, particularly those from non- biomedical materials. The hospital incinerator has been shut down. • A reduction in biomedical waste of 35% since 1998, despite an 8% increase in day surgeries, has saved $9,000/yr in disposal costs. • A new recycling program has increased the amount of recycled waste by 33% and decreased the amount of waste sent for disposal. Cambridge Memorial Hospital (Cambridge, Ontario) • This hospital became the first hospital in North America to receive ISO 14001 certification for its environmental management system. • Achieved a 28% reduction in the total volume of waste generated over a seven-year period (1993-1999). Norfolk General Hospital (Simcoe, Ontario) • Energy conservation initiatives include: lighting alternatives, occupancy sensors, use of timers on hot water pumps, replacement of three boilers and a chiller and cooling tower, have reduced energy demand and consumption. • Using 1991 as a baseline, the hospital has sustained energy savings of at least $132,000 per year, every year, since 1995 CASE 3: Energy Star [22] Conditioning the mass market for environment friendly goals Energy Star is a partnership of over 7,000 government agencies, businesses, and consumers, to standardise energy efficient practices for products that consume electricity. Over the last decade the U.S. public has purchased more than 1 billion Energy Star products and thousands of buildings have been improved. More than 40% of the U.S. public recognizes the Energy Star brand. Last year, thanks to Energy Star, Americans saved the energy required to power 15 million homes and reduced air pollution by an amount equal to taking 14 million cars off the road. • 87% strongly agree or agree with the statement “I’m very concerned about the environment.” [22a] • 93% strongly agree or agree with the statement “Saving energy helps the environment.” [22a] • 67% believe an Energy Star qualified product uses energy more efficiently than a conventional product. [22a] • 23% of households knowingly purchased at least one Energy Star qualified product in the last twelve months. [22b] • 95% of recent purchasers of an Energy Star qualified product say they are somewhat or very likely to purchase an item with the Energy Star mark in the future. [22a] 2.5. Replacement Replacement improves product performance by improving the performance of individual components in that product. Naturally, to get the biggest improvement, one would target those [...]... Method / Teaching Unit 16 Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma possible revenues arising from other methods and the long-term environmental damage that can result 2.10 The Environment and You According to the [16], there are many things that can be done by the individual to help the environment One thing designers can do is work to design products that support the individual’s ability... positively – the better the recyclability, the greater the environmental benefit The indirect impact of the factor arises from the consequences of the factor being considered E.g new products that will be made in the future out of the recycled parts of the current product will not require new materials that would otherwise have to be extracted from the Earth and processed at significant environmental... remember that the checklist is a template, and not the best for every situation There are some products for which some of the DFE factors simply do not apply; those factors can be removed There are other products for which extra DFE factors are missing; such factors Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 24 Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma should be added to the list under the appropriate... practices These categories are not the largest, but contribute the most to the total difference These categories are many times larger for paper than the respective category in the plastics The biggest overall factor in favour of paper bags are the non-recyclable materials, which is 18.87% of the negative impact This same category contributes 25.53% of the impact of plastic bags Reducing the effects of the. .. of the product 2: Somewhat likely to happen within the lifecycle of the product 3: Extremely likely to occur within the lifecycle of the product Duration Each impact will affect the environment for some length of time Duration is a relative measure of the duration of the impact, estimated with respect to the lifetime of the product itself For example, the lifetime of a disposable pen might be a few years;... remanufacture) the materials in the product itself (for brevity we simply refer to this as recyclability) Each factor has a direct impact and an indirect impact that can be positive (environmentally beneficial) or negative (environmentally harmful) The direct impact is the immediate environmental effect, positive or negative, of the factor The recyclability of a product impacts the environment directly... unnecessary waste in the environment (prevention at source) Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 11 Design for the Environment (1.0) Salustri, Mirceski, Bouma 2.6 Reuse Reuse as an environmental strategy is the repeated use of an object (design, product…), in such a way that it can fit the new requirements with minimal or no modifications at all In other words, once a product cannot be used for one thing any... remanufactured into other useful products • Design components to be reused with minimal, cost-effective remanufacturing methods • Include both the environmental and financial costs of remanufacturing to calculate the total product costs during design • Balance the cost of product (re)manufacturing and use against the length of its useful life Tier 2 Method / Teaching Unit 12 Design for the Environment (1.0)... left in open under the sun they will degrade), most common plastics will not degrade • Replacing plastic with paper (shopping bags), whenever possible, because paper is more easily recycled than plastic Shopping bags are in most case one-use-only so therefore they can be replaced with the paper bags for the same purpose, or even with bags that are designed for more than one use therefore eliminating... locations from the actual treatment of the factor Its value is the product of severity, likelihood, and duration characteristics as described above Total This is just the sum of the direct and indirect impacts The grand total of all the impacts is given in the last row Percent This column shows the combined direct and indirect impact as a percentage of the total impact from the last row of the total column . one-use-only so therefore they can be replaced with the paper bags for the same purpose, or even with bags that are designed for more than one use therefore eliminating unnecessary waste in the environment. energy, the more efficient the solar cells are, the less need for them, so there can be reduction is solar panel surface. (Or rather, reductions in raw materials that must be taken from the environment. result. 2.10 The Environment and You According to the [16], there are many things that can be done by the individual to help the environment. One thing designers can do is work to design products