ABSTRACT
Companies have been pressed since the 1960s to reduce their emissions and waste output from their plants. They must abide by EPA regulations, as well as regulations from a host of other government organizations such as OSHA and NIOSH. The traditional approach within a company is to regulate the output of harmful materials, however, in the late 1980s a new approach was introduced. Industrial ecology takes the view of the company as an eco-system [Frosch and Gallopoulos, 1989]. In this system, the usage of energy and materials should be optimized and waste generation minimized. Ideally, the waste streams from one process should serve as materials for another process, thereby allowing the company to obtain as much monetary value from its raw materials and processed materials as possible. How does a company begin this process? In general, design for the environment (DFE) proposes a set of tools and methodologies that can help guide a company to include environmental objectives into their purchasing, design, and manufacturing processes [Allenby, 1994].
