The Food and Agriculture Industries: Food Packaging and Waste Disposal
Americans dispose of more than two hundred million tons of trash each year, and a significant percentage of that is food packaging. As the public has become increasingly concerned about the negative impact of this massive scale of waste disposal, M...
The Chemical Industries: Polyester Manufacturing
Most people commonly associate polyester with clothing but, in fact, the bulk of polyester resins is used to make reinforced plastic products. Polyester is a vital component in plastics which require strength and durability. Polyester not only mak...
The Papermaking Industry: Recycled Pulping
Approximately forty percent of the fiber in U.S. paper products is recycled, or secondary, fiber. Re-pulping fibers that have already been processed shortens them and weakens their bonding capacity, so secondary fiber is often mixed with virgin fib...
Introduction to Waste Stream Management: Pollution Prevention
Recycling industrial materials that would otherwise require treatment or landfilling is known as resource recovery and is part of an emerging area of pollution prevention. Some wastes are converted directly into useful energy in municipal waste-to-...
Waste, Part I: Material Recycling Facilities
The development of technology for handling co-mingled wastes has changed the one-time altuistic gesture of recycling into a symbiotic relationship between environmental needs and profitability.