"This book adds much to the already evolving field of Design for Environment; but it goes far beyond most works on this subject by surrounding the central notions of life cycle assessment with a scientific body of knowledge and with a more practical slant reflecting the reality of the organizations in which product development occurs. Through a focus on plastic products, the authors show the importance of making ties between basic technical knowledge and the process of life cycle engineering. Their approach offers a practical, deliberate way to make ecologically and economically sensible decisions about product reuse and recycling and other critical dimensions of product life behavior. They demonstrate a positive approach to designing products that fits into a sustainable economy through down-to-earth cases. While the book focuses on the life cycle engineering of plastics, it is only a short step to other materials and products. Beyond contributing to the technology of life cycle engineering, this text adds to the growing body of knowledge that argues for an fundamentally new way of thinking about economic and social activity--a new paradigm for sustainable social and industrial problem solving. Industrial ecology is such a new system for thinking about and implementing sustainability that draws its core set of ideas from the ecological world. Industrial ecology brings to the surface the idea of interdependence among members of a community-- natural or economic, and notes the material cycles that are central to a stable ecosystem. The life cycle engineering framework, coupled with sound scientific knowledge of materials behavior as articulated in this book, makes a giant step towards bringing the model of industrial ecology into everyday practice." From the Preface by John R. Ehrenfeld Director, MIT Technology, Business and Environment Program Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development

This book provides insight into the Life Cycle Management (LCM) concept and the progress in its implementation. LCM is a management concept applied in industrial and service sectors to improve products and services, while enhancing the overall sustainability performance of business and its value chains. In this regard, LCM is an opportunity to differentiate through sustainability performance on the market place, working with all departments of a company such as research and development, procurement and marketing, and to enhance the collaboration with stakeholders along a company’s value chain. LCM is used beyond short-term business success and aims at long-term achievements by minimizing environmental and socio-economic burden, while maximizing economic and social value.

The selection and application of engineered materials is an integrated process that requires an understanding of the interaction between materials properties, manufacturing characteristics, design considerations, and the total life cycle of the product. This reference book on engineering plastics provides practical and comprehensive coverage on how the performance of plastics is characterized during design, property testing, and failure analysis. The fundamental structure and properties of plastics are reviewed for general reference, and detailed articles describe the important design factors, properties, and failure mechanisms of plastics. The effects of composition, processing, and structure are detailed in articles on the physical, chemical, thermal, and mechanical properties. Other articles cover failure mechanisms such as: crazing and fracture; impact loading; fatigue failure; wear failures, moisture related failure; organic chemical related failure; photolytic degradation; and microbial degradation. Characterization of plastics in failure analysis is described with additional articles on analysis of structure, surface analysis, and fractography.

This book covers the latest in recycling and reuse research focused toward greater sustainability and includes chapters authored by the world’s leading thinkers and practitioners in the field. Topics covered include recycling and reuse, solid waste management, renewable energy, environmental studies, and wastewater management. This text contains environmental issues with an experimental focus, making this a useful resource to students, researchers, and professionals working in solid waste management, energy and water sustainability issues within the geoscience, engineering, and chemistry fields.

Environmental life cycle assessment is often thought of as cradle to grave and therefore as the most complete accounting of the environmental costs and benefits of a product or service. However, as anyone who has done an environmental life cycle assessment knows, existing tools have many problems: data is difficult to assemble and life cycle studies take months of effort. A truly comprehensive analysis is prohibitive, so analysts are often forced to simply ignore many facets of life cycle impacts. But the focus on one aspect of a product or service can result in misleading indications if that aspect is benign while other aspects pollute or are otherwise unsustainable. This book summarizes the EIO-LCA method, explains its use in relation to other life cycle assessment models, and provides sample applications and extensions of the model into novel areas. A final chapter explains the free, easy-to-use software tool available on a companion website. (www.eiolca.net) The software tool provides a wealth of data, summarizing the current U.S. economy in 500 sectors with information on energy and materials use, pollution and greenhouse gas discharges, and other attributes like associated occupational deaths and injuries. The joint project of twelve faculty members and over 20 students working together over the past ten years at the Green Design Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, the EIO-LCA has been applied to a wide range of products and services. It will prove useful for research, industry, and in economics, engineering, or interdisciplinary classes in green design.

Cradle-to-grave analyses are becoming the norm, as an increasing amount of corporations and government agencies are basing their procurement decisions not only on initial costs but also on life cycle costs. And while life cycle costing has been covered in journals and conference proceedings, few, if any, books have gathered this information into an

Plastics possess properties that have revolutionized the manufacture of products in the 20th century and beyond. It remains critical to understand their behavior throughout their life cycle, from manufacture to use and eventually to reclamation and disposal. This volume highlights the most prominent tools in physical and chemical analysis techniques and applications. A practical reference for performing measurements, solving problems, and investigating behavioral phenomena, the editors advocate a phenomenological approach, relying on case studies and illustrations to represent possible outcomes of each technique and presenting the basic governing equations where necessary.

Providing guidelines for implementing sustainable practices for traditional petroleum based plastics, biobased plastics, and recycled plastics, Sustainable Plastics and the Environment explains what sustainable plastics are, why sustainable plastics are needed, which sustainable plastics to use, and how manufacturing companies can integrate them into their manufacturing operations. A vital resource for practitioners, scientists, researchers, and students, the text includes impacts of plastics including Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) and sustainability strategies related to biobased plastics and petroleum based plastics as well as end-of-life options for petroleum and biobased plastics.

Introduction to Plastics Engineering provides a single reference covering the basics of polymer and plastics materials, and their properties, design, processing and applications in a practical way. The book discusses materials engineering through properties formulation, combining part design and processing to produce final products. This book will be a beneficial guide to materials engineers developing new formulations, processing engineers producing those formulations, and design and product engineers seeking to understand the materials and methods for developing new applications. The book incorporates material properties, engineering, processing, design, applications and sustainable and bio based solutions. Ideal for those just entering the industry, or transitioning between sectors, this is a quick, relevant and informative reference guide to plastics engineering and processing for engineers and plastics practitioners. - Provides a single unified reference covering plastics materials, properties, design, processing and applications - Offers end-to-end coverage of the industry, from formulation to part design, processing, and the final product - Serves as an ideal introductory book for new plastics engineers and students of plastics engineering - Provides a convenient reference for more experienced practitioners

This edited volume presents the proceedings of the 20th CIRP LCE Conference, which cover various areas in life cycle engineering such as life cycle design, end-of-life management, manufacturing processes, manufacturing systems, methods and tools for sustainability, social sustainability, supply chain management, remanufacturing, etc.