ABSTRACT
All human activities cause an impact on the environment. Particularly agriculture, industry, and their products together with the consumption and following waste disposal have caused many pollution problems. We can, in principle, solve these problems by use of environmental technology and ecotechnology. This, however, obviously raises also the question: Could we not change the production, the production method, or even the products in such a way that we would be able to reduce the impact on the environment? Such a change in production, for instance, by recycling inside the production unit may even be much cheaper to realize than the treatment of the subsequent emissions. It may even result in a cost reduction as recycling means less use of “virgin” materials or resources. There are numerous examples of simultaneous reductions in costs and environmental impact due to changes in a production method. At the same time, it is interesting to note that it was earlier believed that it would only pay to implement cleaner technology and production on major production units or factories but experience has shown that even smaller-and medium-sized enterprise units may benefit from such considerations (Klewitz and Hansen, 2014).
