Design for Environment
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Design for Environment Janine Sekutowski Materials processing in the United States alone générâtes billions of pounds of hazardous waste each year in the form of solid wastes, discharges to water, or air émissions. As a resuit, environmental régulations are becoming increasingly stringent, severely limiting options for dealing with wastes. Complying with thèse régulations is not a matter of choice, nor is it inexpensive. Industry spends tens of billions of dollars for end-of-pipe pollution control. Within industry and government there is a shift away from dealing with waste after the fact toward minimizing the génération of waste in the first place. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a four-level hierarchy for waste management: source réduction, recycling, waste treatment, and waste disposai. The first two levels are concerned with minimizing waste, the latter two with end-ofpipe control. Source réduction encompasses any activity that reduces or éliminâtes the génération of waste within a process. Examples of source réduction are materials substitution, process changes, and improved operating procédures. If waste cannot be avoided or reduced at the source, recycling options are to be explored to avoid the need to dispose of the waste. Only when source réduction and recycling are not possible is waste treatment and/or disposai to be contemplated. Waste disposai should be the option of last resort. At AT&T Bell Laboratories, we propose adding a level at the top of the EPA waste management hierarchy to create a fivelevel hierarchy. This level, called "design for environment (DFE)," will address environmental issues in the product concept and design stages, long before any waste is generated and the need for source réduction becomes apparent. Décisions made during the design phase profoundly impact the entire life cycle of the product, from design through manufacturing, distribution, installation, servicing, and disposai. Many estimâtes say that from 80 to 90% of the total life cycle costs of a product are determined in the design phase. Integrating the design process with environmental engineering concerns will mitigate environmental problems downsrream from the design phase, resulting in
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an overall réduction in costs associated with manufacturing process wastes. AT&T has put much effort into integrating the design process with other functions using the concept of DFX. DF stands for "design for" and X stands for "manufacturabifîty, installability, reliability, safety, and other considérations beyond performance and functionality."1 DFE (design for environment) will take the DFX concept a step further, and will integrate design and environmental engineering to minimize the environmental impact of manufacturing as well as other downstream opérations.
Waste disposai should be the option of last resort. Several waste streams are associated with the life cycle of a product, starting with manufacture, and AT&T is investigating the DFE approach to address thèse issues. For ex
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