Category: Economics Of Manufacturing Pollution Prevention

Moving Toward the Zero Discharge Goal A highly desirable “state” for environmental protection would be Zero Discharge of pollutants to the air, water, and land. Today, this is a goal not yet realized. However, “approaching” Zero Discharge has been found to be realistic, as demonstrated by the continual improvement in environmental performance achieved in the…

Surface finishing of metal products is a major manufacturing operation performed in thousands of production shops to provide weather‐resistant, wear‐resistant, and aesthetically pleasing finishes for thousands of manufactured products.1 Surface‐finishing technology involves direct atom‐to‐atom bonding between a base material (such as steel, aluminum, brass, or plastics) and a metal or organic surface top coating that provides…

A critical element of an interim strategy is enhanced recovery. This can be approached from two directions: reuse of products and recycling of materials. Reuse of products includes return, reconditioning, and remanufacturing. The energy required for reuse and recycling is one of the key factors determining recoverability of a product. The closer the recovered product is…

As companies incorporate pollution prevention approaches in their strategic planning, capital investment priorities, and process design decisions, it is vital that they understand both the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of assessing pollution prevention projects. These projects tend to reduce or eliminate costs that may not be captured in cursory financial analyses due to the way…

A complete financial analysis requires the inclusion of CF. On a year‐by‐year basis, the CF from a manufacturing investment is determined through calculations of cash costs, total costs, and cost‐effectiveness. Cash costs, those associated with operating and overhead, include raw materials (chemicals, catalysts, solvent, etc.) utilities (steam, electricity, natural gas, water, etc.), maintenance materials and…

Technology evaluation encompasses not only technical feasibility of a particular technology but also the economics of its implementation. While there are many measures of economic merit, two measures – investment and net present value (NPV) – provide a complete set of information on which to base an informed, economic decision. “Investment” refers to the money…

Total annual cost (TAC) has three elements: direct costs (DC), indirect costs (IC), and recovery credits (RC), which are related by the following equation: (7.1) Clearly, the basis of these costs is one year, a period that allows for seasonal variations in production (and emissions generation) and is directly usable in financial analyses. The various…

The costs and estimating methodology in this section are directed toward the “study” estimate with a nominal accuracy of ±30%. According to Perry’s Chemical Engineer’s Handbook, a study estimate is “used to estimate the economic feasibility of a project before expending significant funds for piloting, marketing, land surveys, and acquisition. However, it can be prepared at…

The economic evaluation of engineering projects typically involves estimation of equipment, installation, raw material, energy, and maintenance cost. Disposal and pollution control costs are often factored into these calculations in determining economic rates of return, but other regulatory and social costs are not. In this chapter, total cost assessment of waste management alternatives is described,…

The failure of many pollution‐prevention programs can be traced to the inability of the engineers and scientists to convince business leadership to change manufacturing processes unfavorable to the environment. Often, this reluctance to change is not because the recommended process improvements were technically unsound, but because the engineering team failed to speak the language of…