13, November 2024
Nature’s Lessons: Creating a Greener Future for Manufacturing
Manufacturing is critical to our way of life. Without it, we would not have the supplies, food, clothing, electronics and other things we use every day. However, manufacturing also produces waste that often ends up in landfills or oceans.
Looking at natural ecosystems provides a different perspective on this conundrum. There is very little waste in nature. For example, certain bacteria and fungi decompose dead organic matter, reintroducing nutrients back into the soil for plants to use as they grow.
This inspires the question — what if one manufacturer’s trash could be another one’s treasure?
Companies could save on waste disposal and raw material sourcing costs. Our planet would also benefit by keeping potentially valuable materials out of landfills.
For example, many companies don’t need pristine or drinkable water for their manufacturing processes. So, rather than discarding used water, another company can use that water for its own operations. This concept of resource sharing and waste exchange through mutually beneficial partnerships is called industrial symbiosis.
Industrial symbiosis arrangements allow companies located near each other to share resources easily because of their proximity. For example, the costs to transport materials between different businesses will presumably be lower if they’re near each other.
Industrial symbiosis is already being used in some parts of the world. The Kalundborg Industrial Symbiosis in Denmark is a famous example of this approach. Over the last 50 years, the Kalundborg partnerships have grown organically through increased awareness of their economic and environmental benefits. Currently, 17 partner businesses are exchanging more than 30 different types of materials, such as water, sand and ethanol waste. As of 2020, the symbiosis had reportedly saved 4 billion liters of groundwater. This partnership reduced so much waste that the local energy supply has become carbon-neutral.
However, not all attempts at industrial symbiosis have been as successful. There are multiple challenges to growing these projects. These include the awareness and identification of compatible waste exchange streams, contract negotiations among companies, and a lack of knowledge of what makes the arrangements successful. That’s why I joined the manufacturing in a circular economy research team at NIST as a postdoctoral researcher to understand what makes these networks successful and how we can measure their success.