Strategies for Manufacturing

The traditional model of industrial production is highly wasteful and ultimately unsustainable in contemporary society. Without change to a more integrated environmentally sound model of production waste pollution economic development and population growth will bury the earth. While technology industrial advances and economic development have allowed significant improvements in the standard of living for segments of the worlds population unforeseen adverse side effects of global scale have also been borne. To allow sustained high standards of living among populations of more developed nations and foster development within developing nations traditional industrial activity must be reformed. All efforts should be made to optimize the consumption of energy and materials minimize the generation of waste and use processes effluents as the raw materials of others. Though challenging we must nonetheless strive toward rationalizing this goal. In discussing these issues and as support for this argument the authors cite examples of petroleum derivative conversion to plastics iron ore conversion to steel and platinum-group metals refinement for use as catalysts.