Industrial waste management within manufacturing: A comparative study of Tools, policies, visions and concepts

Abstract

Industrial waste is a key factor when assessing the sustainability of a manufacturing process or
company. A multitude of visions, concepts, tools, and policies are used both academically and
industrially to improve the environmental effect of manufacturing; a majority of these approaches
have a direct bearing on industrial waste. The identified approaches have in this paper been
categorised according to application area, goals, organisational entity, life cycle phase, and waste
hierarchy stage; the approaches have also been assessed according to academic prevalence, semantic
aspects, and overlaps. In many cases the waste management approaches have similar goals and
approaches, which cause confusion and disorientation for companies aiming to synthesise their
management systems to fit their waste management strategy. Thus, a study was performed on how
waste management approaches can be integrated to reach the vision of zero waste in manufacturing.

Full text

Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Manufacturing Research (ICMR2013)
INDUSTRIAL WASTE MANAGEMENT WITHIN MANUFACTURING: A
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF TOOLS, POLICIES, VISIONS AND CONCEPTS
Sasha Shahbazi1, Martin Kurdve1,2, Marcus Bjelkemyr1, Christina Jönsson2, Magnus Wiktorsson1
1School of Innovation, Design and Engineering
Mälardalen University
Smedjegatan 37, Eskilstuna, SE 631 05, SWEDEN
2Swerea IVF
Brinellvägen 68, Stockholm, SE 100 44, SWEDEN
Sasha.shahbazi@mdh.se, Martin.kurdve@mdh.se, marcus.bjelkemyr@mdh.se
christina.jonsson@swerea.se, magnus.wiktorsson@mdh.se
ABSTRACT
Industrial waste is a key factor when assessing the sustainability of a manufacturing process or
company. A multitude of visions, concepts, tools, and policies are used both academically and
industrially to improve the environmental effect of manufacturing; a majority of these approaches
have a direct bearing on industrial waste. The identified approaches have in this paper been
categorised according to application area, goals, organisational entity, life cycle phase, and waste
hierarchy stage; the approaches have also been assessed according to academic prevalence, semantic
aspects, and overlaps. In many cases the waste management approaches have similar goals and
approaches, which cause confusion and disorientation for companies aiming to synthesise their
management systems to fit their waste management strategy. Thus, a study was performed on how
waste management approaches can be integrated to reach the vision of zero waste in manufacturing.
Keywords: waste management, industrial waste, manufacturing
1 INTRODUCTION
An increase in global manufacturing activities is evident. Globalisation, industrialisation, and
economic development has led to an increase in product demand and increased manufacturing activity
– we have seen a 35% increase of global manufacturing activities over 2001-2010 while the global
GDP increased by 26% (Wiktorsson, 2012), which also lead to larger volumes of industrial (material)
waste (Tojo, 2004). Since the introduction of the concept “sustainable development” (WCED, 1987)
and commitment to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (EU, 1987), the
apprehension of limited resources on the earth has been noticed remarkably (Tojo, 2004).
In the last 20 years, industrial waste has become a critical issue and causes concerns with regards
to global sustainability and environmental effects (Macarthur, 2012). In 2010, the total generated
waste from households and economic activities in the EU-27 amounted to 2 570 million tonnes while
Germany, France and UK have the most portion in the generated waste. Manufacturing accounted for
280 million tonnes of waste generation in 2010 (around 10.9 % of the total) while generated waste
from households accounted for 221 million tonnes in the EU-27. UK, Poland, Italy, Germany and
France together generated around 60% of total manufacturing waste in 2010, whereas UK produced
around 23 million tonne (8% of total manufacturing waste) and Sweden produced 7.8 million tonne
manufacturing waste (2.7 % of total manufacturing waste). However, waste quantity is one problem
while the quality of waste is the other – being hazardous or non-hazardous, valuable or non-valuable.
Current industrial waste management challenge is to keep high quality grades of material in the
industrial system.
The scope of waste management is wide and encompasses different terms. Both industrial waste
and depletion of virgin material put pressure on manufacturing companies to find new viable

Shahbazi, Kurdve, Bjelkemyr, Jönsson, Wiktorsson
approaches that are in line with environmental, social, and economical sustainability. Different
approaches have been created in academia and industry in the past few years, but evidence of actual
use of them is not clear. They also overlap each other by having similar goals and proposing similar
approaches toward waste management (Lilja, 2009). Examples of such concepts are zero waste, waste
minimisation, zero emission and waste prevention.
To support conquering of mentioned challenges, this paper contributes to the field of sustainable
manufacturing by presenting a comparison of tools, policies, visions and concepts for industrial waste
management.
2 RESEARCH DESIGN
A structured literature search was done as complement to former reviews on waste management
approaches that are applicable for manufacturing industry. Of the identified papers addressing
industrial waste management, 80 papers were reviewed to identify and contrast different waste
management approaches. The search incorporated the key words "industrial waste" and " waste
management approach" as well as their combination with "manufacturing" and "automotive". The
search was focused on papers addressing a situation similar to that in Swedish manufacturing industry
and specifically automotive industry; however, papers addressing waste management outside of this
scope were also included in the study. The selecting method was based on both keywords a qualitative
up-stream and down-stream search for relevant references. The empirical base for the paper relies
upon discussions with experts in industrial workshops, in order to verify the results. In addition to the
18 waste management approaches presented in this paper, an additional 19 were identified but
omitted. The exclusion was either based on that an approach had a limited link to industrial waste
management, or that an approaches was a subsets of another one that is addressed in this paper, e.g.
eco-industrial parks and industrial symbiosis are applications to the concept industrial ecology, and
Individual Product Responsibility and Extended Product Responsibility are subsets of the policy/tool
product stewardship.
3 WASTE MANAGEMENT APPROACHES
3.1 Zero waste
The Zero waste focuses on waste prevention, minimisation and reusing by considering waste as
valuable resource rather than a problem for companies. It aims to utilise the concept material
efficiently and uses all material inputs in the final product or changes it into other inputs for another
process(Tang, 2008). Matching input and output of different industries is one of the key challenges
that need to be solved, possibly by industrial ecology through eco-industrial parks, industrial
symbiosis, and new technologies (ZeroWIN, 2010, Atlas, 2001). On a smaller scale products also
need to be designed to meet the requirements of multiple lifecycles, for example through eco-design
and design for disassembly and reassembly (Tang, 2008). With the same intention, Environmentally
Conscious Design and Manufacturing(EDCM) addresses the existing and future relationships between
design, manufacturing, and environment. Environmentally conscious technologies and design
practices help manufacturers to minimise waste and turn it into a profitable product (Zhang et al.,
1997). The zero waste vision and closed-loop are both directed towards preventing waste rather than
managing generated waste, however zero waste can be integrated with other approaches including
industrial ecology, cleaner production, pollution prevention, zero emissions and natural capitalism.
(Curran and Williams, 2012). Furthermore, tools including Green performance map, eco-mapping and
waste diversion planning system can be commonly used to pursue zero waste vision as all are based
on eliminating wasteful usage of energy, material, emissions and resources.
Regulatory factors commonly play a key role to encourage waste minimisation activities;
however, geographically limited regulations generally drive costs in the short term. Therefore it is
easier to establish and enforce regulations when the economy is good than in the current economic
crisis.

Shahbazi, Kurdve, Bjelkemyr, Jönsson, Wiktorsson
3.2 Waste prevention
The waste prevention is a vision that focus on both quantitative and qualitative reduction of waste, i.e.
lower volumes and lower toxicity before the material or product is converted to waste (Lebersorger,
2008, Lilja, 2009). This definition covers the top three steps of the waste hierarchy: prevention,
reduction and reusing. However, waste prevention neither include recycling, energy recovery, nor
product design for recycling and remanufacturing (Lilja, 2009). Discarded material is in this vision
considered as waste, even if they are recycled regardless of if money is paid for the material. The
waste prevention can be strengthened by product stewardship via standards, legislations and cleaner
production through technology optimisation and innovative technologies. Other approaches including
eco-design, Environmental Management Systems (EMS), Environmentally Conscious Design and
Manufacturing(EDCM), eco-efficiency, eco-mapping and Green performance map contribute in
obtaining such vision while all of them cover waste prevention step in waste hierarchy.
Material efficiency and waste prevention both are crucial approaches towards zero waste
(ZeroWIN, 2010). However, material efficiency is a preferred life cycle approach rather than waste
prevention since the majority of the environmental benefits from waste prevention stem from the
decreased requirement to produce materials (Lilja, 2009), as elaborated: “Waste prevention is the goal
ranked highest in the waste hierarchy, but the materialisation of this goal needs actions that are not
alternatives for investments in waste recycling, waste recovery or final disposal”.
3.3 Cleaner production
The objectives of the cleaner production is to enhance productivity and environmental performance,
reduce environmental effects, improve raw material efficiently, reduce water and energy usage,
decrease emissions and design for environmental cost-effective products i.e. Eco-design (Li and Chai,
2007, EPA, 2003). In comparison with the eco-efficiency (Gravitis, 2007), cleaner production is based
on environmental efficiencies that have internal economic advantages, whereas eco-efficiency is based
on economic efficiencies that have environmental advantages. Neither of these concepts cover waste
utilisation in late life-cycle phases. For instance, unlike end-of-pipe waste management solutions,
cleaner production focuses on the manufacturing phase of the product life cycle (Gumbo et al., 2003).
In addition, this vision cover the least area on waste hierarchy among the other visions by just
considering reduction stage and it is in line with (Kuehr, 2007) study which put zero emission as the
next step of cleaner production towards sustainability.
Cleaner production and eco-efficiency focus on reducing materials inputs and reducing wastes at
the level of the firm, whereas industrial ecology characterises a development that moves forward from
dealing with localised environmental impacts (Gibbs and Deutz, 2005). At the firm level eco-design,
pollution prevention and green accounting can contribute; LCA tool and process-based strategies e.g.
industrial symbiosis are used at the inter-firm level; and material and energy flows are used at the
global level (ZeroWIN, 2010). Cleaner production pertain also cleaner technology, Environmental
management systems and best practice concepts (Zhang et al., 1997). Cleaner technology associated
by using innovative technologies that have economic and environmental benefits for source reduction
and eliminating or reducing hazardous waste (Curran and Williams, 2012). Although technological
progresses has helped industries to some extend reduce the environmental damages, best practice
does not solely consist of changes in process but it also include changes from old way of thinking to
continuous improvement of all aspects of companies’ operations and activities. An example of related
tool is waste diversion planning system which improve waste recycling performance by track
particular material diversion tonnage and total percentage of recycled material regarding weight or
volume.
3.4 Zero emission
The zero emissions vision is more extensive than cleaner production vision or other related concepts
such as product stewardship (ZeroWIN, 2010). It is closely related to Eco-design through LCA and
carbon footprint. This vision is in line with pollution prevention and waste prevention as all focus on
reducing wastes and emissions to zero without decreasing productivity. According to (Kuehr, 2007),
zero emission is the last step toward sustainability whereby a closed-loop, industrial ecology (via eco-

Shahbazi, Kurdve, Bjelkemyr, Jönsson, Wiktorsson
industrial parks), wastes being used as inputs for other industries. Connection of zero waste and
cleaner production can be found through using of new technologies and analysing material flows
(Gravitis, 2007). Various tools are also related to such vision e.g. GPM can identify non-productive
outputs of processes in term of rest material, waste and emission to air, water and ground (Kurdve et
al., 2012).
4 ANALYSIS
The identified set of waste management approaches have similar strategies to tackle current
environmental issues, which cause confusion for industries who want to minimise generation of waste
and emission. The approaches can be classified into visions, concepts, tools, and policies; each of
these serve the purpose of reducing waste or the effect of the waste that is generated. Visions are
generally unattainable, but serves as ultimate targets to strive for. Concepts represent broad ideas and
solutions for how to reach a vision; however, each individual concept is generally not sufficient to
reach a vision. Tools generally incorporate a specific process that serves a specific goal, and a set of
tools with different application might are commonly utilised to pursue each concept. Policies and
environmental regulations are either used to hinder development in an undesirable direction or to steer
companies towards a more desirable path. Policies and regulations are imposed by local, national or
international authorities; however, depending on the policy itself and the market it targets, the effects
may exceed its geographical intent or have a more limited effect.
Figure 1 presents the waste management approaches that were most cited in literature with respect
to manufacturing industries. The approaches are mapped according to type (vision, concept, tool, or
policy), organisational usage level (management or operation), measurement (quantitative or
qualitative), improvement action (technology upgrade, management/decision-making, operational
improvement, mind-set changes, or raw material substitution) and number of found citations (based
on pair key word search).
Figure 1 - The 18 most cited tools, concepts, visions and policies categorised
According to figure 1, most of the approaches are applicable for management, but only one of the
visions and three of the concepts are applicable for the operational level. This illustrates a gap where
the practical operational processes do not have sufficient background or purpose. The lack of vision

Shahbazi, Kurdve, Bjelkemyr, Jönsson, Wiktorsson
and purpose may lead to that hands-on environmental efforts, tools, and policies introduced at the
shop-floor are met with distrust and seen as unnecessary work. This inevitably leads to inefficient
waste management and non-sustainable production. In order to improve waste management at the
operational level, the vision and concept associated with each tool needs to be made clear for the
users.
Only half of approaches focus on both a quantitative reduction of waste and a qualitative
reduction i.e. reduced toxicity. Treatment of hazardous waste and toxicity disposal is therefore the
next major concern in waste management activities. Around 77% of all approaches note that better
management and decision making lead to environmental improvement, while 88% of them
recommend operational improvement of the actual waste generating processes as well. Technology
upgrade, raw material exchange and mind-set change have been addressed by approximately 30%.
This indicates that operational improvement and managerial decisions play an important role in
environmental improvement.
In figure 2 all chosen waste management approaches are mapped according to product life cycle
phase and waste hierarchy steps. The mapping is based on the literature review; however, the specific
approaches are not necessarily static and rarely directly linked to life-cycle phases or waste hierarchy.
Consequently, the table should be used indicatively for the whole set of approaches, not for drawing
conclusions for single approaches.
Figure 2 - Integrated table of waste hierarchy and product life cycle, with numbers from Fig 1
The waste management approaches that cover the most areas in the matrix above are zero waste,
eco-design, industrial ecology, waste prevention, and cleaner production. These are either visions or
concepts, which is logical since both tools and policies need to be more detailed and therefore have a
more limited scope.
The majority of waste management approaches refer to reduction, followed by reuse, recycling,
and waste prevention. The dominance of reduction approaches is natural since waste reduction has a
direct effect on manufacturing activities at the factory, reducing volume, cost and complexity
resulting from waste. Therefore, non-environmental benefits might be an incentive for manufacturing
companies to more focus on reduction. The limited number of approaches linked to landfill and
energy recovery is a direct result from this study’s focus on manufacturing; however, it also shows
that these end-of-pipe solutions have a weak connection to a product’s life phases and waste
management activities in manufacturing. In addition, both landfill and energy recovery pose primarily
technical difficulties, which is not shown in this study.
Approximately 70% of the waste management approaches have impact on the manufacturing
phase of the product. 77% of approaches influence raw material processing phase while half of them
affect the end of life phase. Moreover, design and consumption phase can be influenced by 44% of the
approaches. As the matrix shows, the manufacturing phase and raw material processing phase of
product life cycle are often the primary targets of the approaches; however, the evidences of actual
use of them among manufacturing companies is not so common.

Shahbazi, Kurdve, Bjelkemyr, Jönsson, Wiktorsson
5 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH
The most frequent barriers toward waste management and sustainable production is according to this
study: technical limitation, cultural shifts, lack of EU-level goals on waste prevention and material
efficiency, hindrance for waste prevention due to low waste disposal costs and absence of standards
for reusable products. Achieving sustainable production therefore, requires a structured approach with
best use of existing tools and concepts integrating with environmental policies, and/or developing new
ones in order to prevent waste in the first place. Corporate environmental managers should realise that
enhancement of waste minimisation is more probable by hands-on approaches at the facility level and
consequently integrated methods should be used at shop-floor to motivate companies to formalise and
follow their waste minimisation actions. Most of these actions are not technology driven. They
constitute material substitution, waste separation, recycling, process improvement, preventing leak
and spills, inventory control and better management procedure. Hence, future waste minimisation
might not take place on technological changes but on mind-set changes, operational improvement and
management techniques in order to reduce the quantity of waste while enhance the quality of waste
and residual material. Re-examination of production processes and operations, and redesigning
material flow and production system is necessary to identify waste minimisation opportunities and
enable remanufacturing, recycling, reusing, refining and recondition of the material. Moreover, taking
advantage of other facilities experiences in waste minimisation actions and communicating these
among stakeholders, staffs, customers and supplier will facilitate such paths.
The study is an introduction to the research on different approaches regarding waste management,
but more data will be needed to describe their specification and interaction in detail. Examples on
future research are to study each approach or subset in respect to a more detailed organisation level,
improvement processes and direct and indirect effect on product life cycle phases. Moreover, the
application of each approach in different manufacturing companies would be essential to see how
these concepts are implemented in practice.
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