Measures of Environmental Performance and Ecosystem Condition (1999) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
National Material Metrics for Industrial Ecology
National Material Metrics for Industrial Ecology
Pages 157-174
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 157... ...
The need to develop environmental metrics is particularly strong for materials. National materials consumption indicates the structure of national industrial activity and its extent.
|
From page 158... ...
We group extractive wastes separately because they represent immense mobilizations of materials readily distinguished from commodities, products, and other wastes. We use previously published data for all the values indicated and generally adhere to existing classifications.
|
From page 159... ...
. In addition, national materials metrics offer the prospect of capturing environmentally significant trends and relations not captured in the current regulatory framework, which tends to emphasize reporting by media, especially air and water, rather than along the functioning of the economic system.
|
From page 160... ...
WERNICK AND JESSE H AUSUBEL materials/Total material mining and processing waste, energy inputs use
|
From page 161... ...
Metals recycling rate Percentage Quantity of recycled and Materials efficiency and cyclicity secondary metals consumption/Total metals consumption Renewable net carbon Percentage Forest growth/Forest products Global carbon balance of sources and balance harvested sinks, land use, ecosystem disruption Output intensities Green productivity Percentage Quantity of solid wastes/ Materials efficiency and cyclicity Quantity of total solid physical outputs Intensity of use for MMT/$106 GDP Generation quantity for selected Relationship of waste generation to residues materials waste streams/GDP economic activity in constant dollars Leak indices Dissipation index Percentage Quantity of materials dissipated Materials efficiency and cyclicity, into the environment/Total media contamination material outputs Nutrient and metals mg/liter and kg/km2 Concentrations of pollutants in Materials monitoring and accounting, loadings water bodies, and land media contamination deposition of nutrients and heavy metals/Defined area Environmental trade index MMT Net mass value of waste and Domestic resource consumption, NATIONAL MATERIAL METRICS FOR INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY emissions generated from domestic environmental burden foreign trade in caused by exported goods manufactured products and raw resources Mining efficiency Mining wastes Dimensionless Quantity of wastes generated/ Solid wastes, acid mine drainage Ton of finished product By-product recovery Dimensionless Total by-product recovery/Total Materials efficiency, solid wastes output 161 xxx
|
From page 162... ...
The choice of structural materials indicates trends relevant to national environmental performance as well. Demand for properties in industrial and consumer goods influences selection among the major classes of structural materials: metals, ceramics and glasses, and polymeric materials including wood (Ashby, 1979)
|
From page 163... ...
10-1 100 101 102 103 104 105 Ceramics Polymers Toughness Metals Kelvin scale 0 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 Ceramics Polymers Melting Metals point Metric tons / m2 10-1 100 101 Polymers Ceramics Density Metals FIGURE 3 Range of physical properties for structural materials. Young's modulus is a measure of material elasticity.
|
From page 164... ...
Reduced national meat consumption accompanied by a rise in fruit, grain, and vegetable consumption diminishes the acreage used for grazing and feed in favor of less land-extensive crops. Cultivation of legumes and rice affects nitrogen fixation rates and atmospheric methane concentrations, respectively.
|
From page 165... ...
In 1990, 4,692,919 metric tons of phosphate were consumed and GDP was $4,120 billion, equivalent to about 11.2 metric tons per million dollars GDP.) All intensity-of-use values are normalized to unity at 1940 with the exception of plastics, which is indexed to 1942.
|
From page 166... ...
forests gained an average of over 150 million cubic meters of timber annually, augmenting existing timber volume at an annual rate of about 0.7 percent (United States Department of Agriculture, 1992)
|
From page 167... ...
However, dry weight data on industrial wastes rarely exist or are hard to obtain (United States Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, 1992)
|
From page 168... ...
Exporting raw materials consumes national resources and scars the domestic landscape. Using domestic industry to convert imported materials into finished goods and prepare indigenous materials for export can damage the environment in other ways.
|
From page 169... ...
As a discipline, industrial ecology discourages reducing the system to components and examining them in strict isolation. The challenge for national material metrics, as well as other national environmental metrics, is to quantify and integrate relevant data that elucidate the primary structure and development of the system from an environmental perspective.
|
From page 170... ...
Looking to the future, national materials metrics help order the national research agenda for materials science and engineering (National Academy of Sci
|
From page 171... ...
We can imagine an industrial ecosystem in which emissions, including carbon and water vapor, are captured and complex waste streams are separated to recover the value and utility of their components. The discipline of creating national materials metrics is a useful start to creating a consistent, realistic long-range technical vision.
|
From page 172... ...
1993. Consumption of Glass Furnace Demolition Waste as Glass Raw Material.
|
From page 173... ...
1995. National materials flows and the environment.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.