Waste Recovery

Today’s concerns about the global environment are a response to the massive scale on which modern technologies are now utilized and the certainty that they will spread to the developing countries in the decades ahead. Generation of a wide range of waste products has placed considerable stress upon the environment mainly in the industrialized economies. Poverty, especially coupled with the rates of population growth, typical of many developing countries, also generates characteristic patterns of pollution. Mainly associated with improperly treated human sewage and the degradation of land, these problems tend to be localized, although they affect large number of people.

Modern technology is responsible for the elevated material standard of living that has been achieved by a significant fraction of the earth’s population. New environment studies reflects progressive approach as how economic prosperity could be achieved in line with preservation of the environment. It is true that two objectives can compete with each other because mostly environmental goals generally requires resources that could otherwise be allocated for growth and vice versa. By making reasonable choices regarding technology and social organisation both objectives can be achieved, moderately.

For households the emphasis is on conservation of energy without sacrifice of convenience. It was assumed that new technologies would be used in lighting, major appliances, space heating and cooling, and building construction. The new equipments were assumed to be competitive (small additional capital cost) and achieved an energy saving of nearly 50 % by 2020 per units of consumption relative to households’ use of energy. The prospect is that future use of purchased energy by the average household in developing countries will increase with urbanisation. The substitution of commercial fuels for biomass, and improvement in the standard of living. While the figures vary among geographic regions, per capita consumption of commercial fuels in households in developing countries is assumed to rise as much as “four times” between 1990 and 2020. Per capita electricity use is projected to increase even more rapidly. The share of nuclear energy is not expected to expand in developed countries and in fact is most likely to fall except Japan.

In developing countries there will be increase in nuclear capacity, especially in Asia. Hydroelectric capacity will also increase. With income growth and urbanization in developing countries, there will be a significant expression in the constructive of buildings, which use more cement, concrete and wood. Aluminium will increasingly be produced in developing regions with cheap hydro electric power and will substitute for many other materials. An important area for material saving is recycling with slower growth in total metal production and use, the size of the stock of available old scrap relative to new demand will increase, and significantly less energy will be required to process crap than virgin metals. The share of paper that is recycled is expected to continue to increase reaching 60% by the year 2020 in the developed regions.

Electronic components have undergone rapid and continuing advances in capability and reductions in cost. The anticipated future importance of this sector in all economies by an increase in its share among investment goods. The future productivity of agriculture especially in developing countries, may have a strong impact on the standard of living, investment priorities and trade. Household keeping measures include checking for small leaks replacing worn belts, damaged insulation and bad bearings and cleaning dirty heating surfaces and lamps in a regular timely fashion. These procedures can be carried out during regular maintenance and require no additional investment. Waste heat recovery is a significant and very cheap source of energy savings, provided that there is a use for the heat and that it can be delivered in adequate quantities. The efficiency of electrical systems can be improved by converting lighting systems to more efficient fluorescent and high intensity discharge lamps, rescheduling operations to reduce peak load, installing automatic controls replacing oversized electric motors, etc.

Simple inexpensive housekeeping measures and minor combustion and steam system improvements are identified and require one time installation or replacement of minor equipment. The World Bank study estimated the payback period for the cost of implementing these measures at one to two years.


References:

The Future of the Environment; Ecological economics and technological change, Faye Duchin, Chenn-Mariee Lange, Oxford University Press (1994)