Detoxification Clean Production Design Products Plus Goes handinhand

Detoxification & Clean Production Design & “Products Plus” Goes hand-in-hand with conserving and closing loops: Waste as Food Main problems rooted in the Epoch of Oil Knowledge & integration with nature Weak area of Industrial Ecology to date

Commoner’s Laws of Ecology (The Closing Circle, 1971) 1. Everything is connected to everything else. 2. Everything has to go somewhere (there is no such place as away). 3. Nature knows best. 4. There is no such thing as a free lunch; all debts are repaid.

Supplementary 5 th Law “If you don’t put a synthetic toxin into the environment, it isn’t there. ” the role of prevention (1990)

Current Regulation • Based on determining “safe” exposures and limiting releases to environment – Even where this makes sense, it’s commonly negated by economic growth • Chemicals innocent until proven guilty • Little attention to synergistic effects

Toxicity • intentional: pesticides, disinfectants, etc. – often a substitute for proper design: agriculture • not intentional, but due to functional properties or chemical structure that make them likely to be toxic • completely unrelated to function: to provide corrosion-resistance, pigmentation or flexibility. “products plus”

Clean Production • …promotes renewable energy, non toxic materials in a closed loop and sustainable product design • …rooted within circular concepts of the product life cycle • …based on the Precautionary Principle

Materials Flow Model (Geiser, 2001)

Industrial Material Groups (source: Geiser, 2001)

• Inherently toxic throughout its life cycle • The only chlorinated plastic • Petrochemical industry: the nexus of contemporary capitalism’s brown industry. – Chlorine: the nexus of the petrochemical industry. • Grew by replacing safer substances • Key struggle within the Green Building Councils

Strategies • Bans / phase-outs – precautionary principle • Product Stewardship: – EPR; Intell. Product System • 3 rd Party Certification: LEED • Toxics Use Reduction initiatives – TURI (Massachusetts) – corporate initiatives: Nike, SONY, etc. • Facilitation of alternative materials • Green Procurement • Building Codes

TURI Strategies for Substitution & Reduction • material substitution in the product – e. g. water- for oil- based paints • material substitution in the process – aqueous cleaning systems for chlorinated solvents • improvements in production efficiencies – automated temperature controls • improvements in process operations or maintenance • internal recycling or closed-loop processing

E-waste • e-waste