- Email: [email protected]
Sustainable Chemistry – A concept with important links to waste management
Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy 6 (2017) 57–60
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scp
Sustainable Chemistry – A concept with important links to waste management
MARK
Henning Friege N³ Nachhaltigkeitsberatung Dr. Friege & Partner, Scholtenbusch 11, D-46562 Voerde, Germany
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Sustainable Chemistry Waste reduction Hazardous waste Chemical leasing Sustainable development goals Recovery of resources
Sustainable Chemistry is an overarching concept encompassing the design, manufacture and use of efficient, effective, safe and more environmentally benign chemical products and processes. With respect to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, 2015), the Sustainable Chemistry concept may serve as an important tool to reach these objectives including a high number of targets for chemicals and waste management. Sustainable Chemistry might become a valuable contribution to present waste management issues: Recycling of waste and recovery of resources from waste fractions are often severely restricted by the chemical composition of used products. These restrictions include components, which turned out to be hazardous, mixed materials like plastics with numerous additives, composite materials, which cannot be separated properly like plastics/wood, or low concentrated scarce metals in electronic devices. Following the concept of Sustainable Chemistry, – higher resource efficiency and increasing use of waste-derived renewable resources without endangering food production, – use of substances, which are not only less toxic but also better degradable under natural conditions (“benign by design”), – design of products which allow recycling by avoidance of inseparable combinations of materials and firmly fixed modules (“design for recycling”), might be achieved. The paper aims to demonstrate the benefits of integrating waste management issues into the concept of Sustainable Chemistry to avoid further unilateral technical solutions, which do not take re-use or recovery of resources into account.
1. Introduction Residential and most commercial waste are nothing but crude mixtures of used or useless products, spoiled foodstuffs, remaining materials from construction and demolition, used packaging, etc. Each of the waste components is made from distinct materials based on certain raw materials and chemicals. With respect to the two main objectives of waste management, i.e. – disposal of residual waste safely to protect human health (urban hygiene) and the environment (water, soil, atmosphere, biodiversity), – recovery of materials and substances from waste with the aim to substitute virgin materials (resource conservation),
E-mail address: [email protected]. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scp.2017.08.001 Received 25 May 2017; Received in revised form 24 July 2017; Accepted 12 August 2017 2352-5541/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
it is obvious that the properties of chemicals serving as building blocks or additives in materials are crucial for successful disposal or recovery. Globalization of consumer products also means global application of chemicals used in these products and also global spread of these chemicals with waste, when the products come to their “end of life” (EoL). This leads to global availability also of hazardous chemicals as ingredients in certain goods and in waste as it has been investigated in the RiskCycle project (Bilitewski et al., 2011, 2013). The disposal of hazardous compounds in defined or mixed waste is a challenge for waste management not only in the countries where these substances have been produced, but everywhere in the world where they were applied and disposed of or recycled. We have to differ two cases: On one hand, we might be confronted with hazardous chemicals in waste. In this case, special methods
Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy 6 (2017) 57–60
H. Friege
– Synthesis and use of chemicals which are obviously less or nonhazardous and not persistent under environmental conditions – Design of materials and products with respect to resource recovery after use (“design for recycling”)
(neutralization, incineration at high temperature,…) must be used to ensure safe disposal. If waste of this type shows up in countries without an adequate industrial infrastructure, this may implicate severe problems endangering humans and environment, as it is known from many chemicals used in products decades ago. There is an enormous number of examples like PCBs banned years ago (Stockholm Convention) which are still found in many regions where they have never been produced, but used in transformers, small capacitors included in household appliances or as joint sealers in buildings. The problems caused by Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) like PCB need a world-wide approach (Weber et al., 2013). Disposal methods and capacities in most developing and emerging countries are not adequate to manage this type of waste. In this case, the double role of waste and valuables, i.e. contamination of used items containing valuable resources by dangerous compounds, is also a serious problem for industrialized countries, because recycling steps are restricted to incineration or other decomposition processes. On the other hand, recovery of valuable materials from waste (used paper, plastics, metals…) is often hampered by certain chemicals
2. The concept of sustainable Chemistry As to the production of chemicals being less hazardous and environmentally safe, there are some rules of thumb introduced in the 90ies which are known as “principles of green chemistry” (EPA, 1990; Anastas and Warner, 1998) including waste prevention (in production), targeted synthesis maximizing atom economy, and design of safer chemicals and products. Sustainable Chemistry as it has been developed in the last 10–15 years since a joint workshop of OECD and German Agencies (Umweltbundesamt, 2004) is an overarching concept. “Sustainable chemistry generally includes all aspects of a product related to sustainability e.g. social and economical aspects related to the use of resources the shareholders, the stakeholders and the consumers.” (Kümmerer and Clark, 2016). This concept includes the green chemistry approach as a tool on the molecular level, i.e. in the stage of synthesis, but going beyond this level by accounting “for not only the functionalities of a molecule that are necessary for its application but also their impact and significance at the different stages of its life cycle” (Kümmerer and Clark, 2016) including the last step when the materials and the product made hereof become waste. Sustainable Chemistry is characterized by the OECD as “a scientific concept that seeks to improve the efficiency with which natural resources are used to meet human needs for chemical products and services. Sustainable chemistry encompasses the design, manufacture and use of efficient, effective, safe and more environmentally benign chemical products and processes.” (OECD, 2015). Though world-wide accepted definitions for Sustainable Chemistry are still under development, the following summary based on recent studies and discussions may be taken as “state of the art” (Blum et al., 2017):
– which may not longer be used for certain purposes (e.g. cadmium stearate formerly used as stabilizer in PVC in Europe (European Commission, 2011)) – which are used for a certain scope of application, but should not be present in other applications based on the same raw material (e.g. oil based inks for printing of newspaper migrating into food packaging made from used paper (Pivnenko et al., 2016)) – which are not hazardous but a technical obstacle for the recovery process (e.g. certain combinations of metals in alloys which cannot be separated due to metallurgic reasons (Reuter and van Schaik, 2012)). These phenomena have a common ground and are linked to other phenomena being of enormous importance for waste managements strategies (“Seven general dilemmas” (Friege, 2012a, 2012b)). This also means that the road to “circular economy” (European Commission, 2015) is paved with a number of stumbling blocks:
– Sustainable chemistry contributes to a positive, long-term development in society, environment and economy. With new approaches and technologies it develops value-creating products and services for the needs of civil society. – Sustainable chemistry increasingly uses substances, materials and processes with the least possible adverse effects. Moreover, substitutes, alternative processes and recycling concepts are used, and natural resources are conserved. Thus, damage and impairments to human beings, ecosystems and resources are avoided. – Sustainable chemistry is based on a holistic approach, setting measurable targets for a continuous process of change. Scientific research and education for sustainable development in schools and vocational training serve as an important basis for this development.
– A mixture of several materials in one product leads to complicated and energy consuming recovery processes (increasing entropy by material mix), if indeed possible. In most cases, products made from numerous materials (i.e. electronic appliances, plastic products, functional textiles) cannot be recycled without severe loss of valuable materials. As a rule of thumb, recyclability depends on the number of separation steps and the price for valuables, which is obtained on the market (Dahmus and Gutowski, 2007), thus integrating the economic and the ecological dimension. – High dissipation of products is an obstacle for collection, i.e. entropy increases by dissipation. The twofold entropy problem is often underestimated by policy (De Man and Friege, 2016). – Depending on the character of the product in question, there is a time lag of some months, some years, or even some decades between the production of a good and its final fate as waste. There is severe information loss over time, i.e. the construction materials and chemicals used in a product becoming waste years after production are mostly not known. The content of materials and chemicals in a manufactured product often varies over time (Greenfield and Graedel, 2013) often discouraging recycling companies and impede investment in new technologies. Time is a scalar quantity – i.e. there is only one direction, and we cannot stop technical development.
Fig. 1 shows that Sustainable Chemistry has a number of intersections with other big issues of global development. As per definition of sustainability, it is not a firm target, but a process and an aim; the same is true for Sustainable Chemistry. With respect to the challenges described in the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015) this overarching concept may serve as an important tool to reach these objectives including a high number of targets for the use of chemicals and waste management. This will be worked out on the global level under the umbrella of the UNEP driving the SAICM process as well as the international conventions dealing with hazardous chemicals and hazardous waste within one branch (i.e. DTIE Chemicals and Waste Branch). In contrast to addressing the problems caused by unsafe application of chemicals and hazardous substances left over from use, the breakthrough of Sustainable Chemistry depends more on successful new business and marketing models than on more regulation, because green chemistry principles as well as the Sustainable Chemistry concept save
There is no chance to overcome these problems in general. But there are some obstacles which we can get out of the way and some borders which may be shifted: – Production of chemicals with less (hazardous) waste 58
Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy 6 (2017) 57–60
H. Friege
Chemical leasing inverts a supplier's commercial interest in a higher consumption of chemicals, because the supplier sells the functions performed by the chemical and not the chemical itself. The service accounted for functional units (number of pieces cleaned, amount of area coated, etc.) becomes the main basis for compensation. It shifts the focus from increasing the sales volume of chemicals to a value-added approach (UNIDO, 2016). Moreover, this business model means a shift towards waste reduction, because it is characterized by thinking about chemicals sales from a waste minimization and holistic life cycle perspective. This helps to establish nearly closed loop systems, to enhance know-how exchange between business partners and to incentivize resource efficiency. If necessary service is provided by the producer of the active ingredients (e.g. cleaning agents for hospitals), this also means better standards for occupational safety (and again less waste) in contrary to the application of these chemicals by unskilled workers (Schülke and Mayr, 2012).
Fig. 1. Sustainable Chemistry interfacing other global issues.
3.3. Reorganisation of the added-value chain
money in the long run and offer opportunities not only for chemical industry but also for other manufacturers along the value chain.
With respect to the production and sales of chemicals, tailor-made products and comprehensive solutions are of growing importance. These business models, which require numerous activities up and down the added-value chain, are partially driven by digitalization. In the following Table 1, some examples of recent developments in the branch of chemical fibres are listed (Bazzanella et al., 2017).
3. Waste management and its relation to Sustainable Chemistry 3.1. Less hazardous compounds Enhanced standards for registration, notification and regulation of chemicals and the development of better assessment tools to predict physical-chemical properties, toxicity, degradation under environmental conditions etc. (e.g. “in silico” methods, cf. (Ekins, 2007)) will probably reduce the number of hazardous chemicals in future applications. Moreover, technological breakthrough may help to avoid potentially hazardous substances still in use. Insulation materials may serve as an example: Rock wool and glass wool, together referred to as mineral wool, have been used for decades as a means of insulating buildings. Urea formaldehyde resins or phenol resins are mostly used as binders. The mineral substances exhibit a thermal conductivity of 30–40 mW/(m × K). The second largest group (by market share in Europe) are organic polymers, above all expanded poly-styrene as well as the less often used extruded polystyrene with a thermal conductivity of 30–40 mW/(m × K) and polyurethane with 20–30 mW/(m × K). All organic insulating materials must be treated with flame retardants. Phenol formaldehyde or urea formaldehyde resins used as binders as well as many brominated aromatic compounds used as flame retardants are severely restricted due to health risks. Both problems can be avoided by aerogels, i.e. gels based on silica with very small pores, which achieve a thermal conductivity of about 13 mW/(m × K). The smaller and more finely distributed the pores are, the lower the thermal conductivity through the insulating material.1 If nanoporous insulation material achieves its breakthrough on the market, several incremental steps towards sustainability can be taken: less hazardous properties, better insulation, better recyclability due to absence of flame retardants and binders.
3.4. BAT Significant contributions of Sustainable Chemistry to less waste production are also achieved by application of Best Available Techniques (BAT) as have been defined for many industry sectors in Europe (European Commission Joint Research Centre, 2012). Within the ISC3 preparatory project (www.isc3.org), research projects, pilot processes, and innovations already put on market were screened to find approaches towards Sustainable Chemistry (Bazzanella et al., 2017). This study focused on specific products and processes designed for construction, agriculture, medicine and other application areas. As a preliminary result one may state that there are numerous approaches involving waste reduction (e.g. new production processes) and use of regional waste streams as raw material. On the other hand, multi-layer or composite material including carbon fibre etc. have been put on market as innovations to decrease weight and thus CO2 emissions during application. Obviously, these products are not designed for recycling. At their end of life, recovery of resources from such materials is nearly impossible. It is therefore very important to define, develop, and implement Sustainable Chemistry to avoid solutions, which are not sustainable from the perspective of resource management. If trade-offs cannot be avoided they should at least be made transparent and discussed to find the best option for the case in question. 4. Conclusion With the development of guiding principles for Sustainable Chemistry, a first step has been taken together with the relevant stakeholders at national and international level to establish a common understanding of Sustainable Chemistry. Filling this model with life will be a central task of the International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Centre (ISC3) initiated by the German Government, which was launched in May 2017.2 The Sustainable Development Goals
3.2. Business models including waste minimization There are business models of growing importance, which include waste minimization, recovery operations or other measures, which are not limited to the chemical industry. Unnecessary production of waste as well as occupational hazards may be avoided by “chemical leasing” comprising many business models which are successfully applied in various sectors such as production of petrochemicals, automotive industry and manufacturing, food industry, agriculture or hospitals.
2 “ISC3 will be available as point of contact for subject-related topics in the field of Sustainable Chemistry. This field is very broad: Sustainable Chemistry often starts with the “clearing up” of hazardous chemical waste and ends with state-of-the-art synthesis methods, the inherent goal of which is safer materials coupled with minimum resource input. By analysing and assessing research, innovations and the accompanying development of the market, the centre should serve as a source of inspiration for the German
1 However, the energy input needed to produce aerogels is considerable due to the high pressures and temperatures; they are made by extracting the water from silica.
59
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Table 1 Development of business models in the branch of chemical fibres. Value added chain – forwards
Value added chain - backwards
Optimisation of production, use and re-use of fibres as further development in the pulp and paper industry (strategic approaches) Taking back by retailers of textiles produced or sold themselves as voluntary individual manufacturer responsibility Recovery and re-use of carbon fibres from composites (R & D) Optimisation of production, use and re-use of vegetable fibres as further development in the pulp and paper industry Increase in the use of biopolymers for specific purposes (e.g. BPA for agricultural foils)
Press, New York Oxford. Bazzanella A., Zeschmar-Lahl B., Friege H., 2017. Identification of Priority Topics in the Field of Sustainable Chemistry, in preparation. Study design and first results are published on 〈https://isc3.org/2017/03/results-from-the-isc3-project-identificationof-priority-topics-in-the-field-of-sustainable-chemistry-summary/〉. Bilitewski, B., Darbra, R.M., Barceló, D., 2011. Global Risk-Based Management of Chemical Additives I, The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry. 18 Springer (ISBN 978-3-642-248757). Bilitewski, B., Darbra, R.M., Barceló, D., 2013. Global Risk-Based Management of Chemical Additives II, The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry. 23 Springer (ISBN 978-3-642-34572-2). Blum, C., Bunke, D., Hungsberg, M., Roelofs, E., Joas, A., Joas, R., Blepp, M., Stolzenberg, H.C., 2017. The concept of sustainable chemistry: key drivers for the transition towards sustainable development. Sustain. Chem. Pharm. 5, 94–104. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.scp.2017.01.001. Dahmus, J.B., Gutowski, G.T., 2007. What gets recycled: an information theory based model for product recycling. Environ. Sci. Technol. 41, 7543–7550. De Man, R., Friege, H., 2016. Circular economy: European policy on shaky ground. Waste Manag. Res. 34 (2), 93–95. Ekins, S. (Ed.), 2007. Computational Toxicology: Risk Assessment for Pharmaceutical and Environmental Chemicals. John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken. European Commission, 2011. Regulation No 494/2011 of 20 May 2011 amendingRegulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council on REACH as regards Annex XVII (Cadmium), OJ L 134/2-134/5. European Commission Joint Research Centre, 2012. Revision of the Standard Texts Used in BREFs to Adapt Them to the IED Regime. 〈http://eippcb.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ reference/BREF/Codified_version_of_standard_text29_08_12.pdf〉. European Commission, 2015. Circular Economy Closing the Loop. 〈http://europa.eu/ rapid/press-release_IP-15-6203_en.htm〉 (Accessed 15 December 2015). Environmental Protection Agency, 1990. Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 of the U.S. (〈http://www2.epa.gov/green-chemistry/basics-greenchemistry#definition〉). Friege, H., 2012a. Material recovery from used electric and electronic equipment-alternative options for resource conservation. Waste Manag. Res. 30 (9S), 3–16. Friege, H., 2012b. Ressourcenschutz am Beispiel der Elektro- und Elektronik-altgeräte. II. Ansätze für einen effizienteren Umgang mit nicht erneuerbaren Ressourcen (conservation of resources with respect to waste from electric and electronic devices. II. approaches towards efficient management of non-renewable resources). Müll und Abfall 44 (6), 307–317. Greenfield, A., Graedel, T.E., 2013. The omnivorous diet of modern technology. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 74, 1–7. Kümmerer, K., Clark, J., 2016. Green and sustainable chemistry. In: Heinrichs, H., Wiek, A., Martens, P., Michelsen, G. (Eds.), Textbook on Sustainability Science. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, pp. 43–60. OECD, 2015. 〈http://www.oecd.org/chemicalsafety/risk-management/ sustainablechemistry.htm〉 (Accessed 30 January 2016). Pivnenko, K., Olsson, M.E., Götze, R., Eriksson, E., Astrup, T.F., 2016. Quantification of chemical contaminants in the paper and board fractions of municipal solid waste. Waste Manag. 51, 43–54. Reuter, M., van Schaik, A., 2012. Opportunities and limits for recycling: a dynamicmodel-based analysis. MRS Bull. 37, 339–347. Schülke, Mayr, 2012. Chemikalienleasing – effiziente und nachhaltige Krankenhaushygiene (Chemical Leasing – Efficient and Sustainable Solution for Hospital Hygiene); 〈https://www.dbu.de/OPAC/ab/DBU-Abschlussbericht-AZ26035.pdf〉 (Accessed 11 May 2016). Umweltbundesamt, 2004. International Workshop on Sustainable Chemistry – Integrated Management of Chemicals, Products and Processes. Joint workshop by the Federal Environment Agency, OECD, the German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, held in Dessau, 27–29 January 2004. 〈http://www. gdch.de/taetigkeiten/nch/inhalt/jg2004/dessau.pdf〉 (Accessed 15 April 2014). Umweltbundesamt, 2015. Bundling Expertise in the Field of Sustainable Chemistry, Fact Sheet. 〈http://www.global-chemicals-waste-platform.net/fileadmin/files/Summer_ School/Umweltbundesamt_2015.pdf〉 (Accessed 11 May 2016). United Nations, 2015. Sustainable Development Goals. 〈https://sustainabledevelopment. un.org/sdgs〉 (Accessed 24 November 2015). United Nations Industrial Development Organisation – UNIDO, 2016. Global Promotion and Implementation of Chemical Leasing Business Models in Industry, Ten years outlook, Vienna. Weber, R., Aliyeva, G., Vijgen, J., 2013. The need for an integrated approach to the global challenge of POPs management. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 2013 (20), 1901–1906.
require holistic approaches like Sustainable Chemistry. The Sustainable Chemistry concept should be looked at as an important tool to approach the global agenda for 2030. It is obvious that the potential for applications is even higher for developing countries. As to the former (and also present) use of hazardous materials leading to huge piles of dangerous waste, we have to remain in cleaning up affected sites and grounds. The Sustainable Chemistry concept will help to decrease the generation of hazardous waste in future and also enable us to recover more used materials. Contributions from waste management to Sustainable Chemistry on one hand and new linkages between chemicals, product design and resource recovery on the other hand should be discussed also in the waste management community. Scientific work for both fields could stimulate each other. This is of special importance with respect to the discussion about circular economy. Apart from the physical impossibility of closing material loops up to 100% (which would need infinite energy according to the second principle of thermodynamics), there are a lot of feasible goals for less waste production and far more material recovery as compared to present practice, if the Sustainable Chemistry concept becomes mainstream for synthesis of chemicals and life cycle approaches of products. With respect to the ideas and examples presented in this article, it is recommended – To further develop the concept of Sustainable Chemistry with a strong link to waste and resource management, – To develop and implement “design-for-recycling” (DfR) rules for combinations of materials and chemicals, – To integrate resource management into innovative value added chains preferably together with companies and experts from the waste management branch, – To expand service oriented business models like “chemical leasing” in order to remain interest in waste reduction as an economic and ecological goal. Acknowledgements This paper includes results from the ISC3 project (www.isc3.org). The author gratefully acknowledges many comments by Hans-Christian Stolzenberg (German Environment Agency), Barbara Zeschmar-Lahl (BZL GmbH) and Andreas Borgmann, moreover discussions with Klaus Kümmerer (Leuphana University), Christopher Blum, Petra Greiner (German Environment Agency), Jutta Emig, Vassilios Karavezyris (Federal Environment Ministry), Andreas Förster, Alexis Bazzanella (DECHEMA e.V.). I greatly appreciated the comments of the peer reviewers. References Anastas, P., Warner, J., 1998. Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice. Oxford University
(footnote continued) government, but also for public institutions and enterprises worldwide. With the help of the network ISCnet being currently under construction, ISC3 will also function as a platform. In this way, ISC3 as multiplier will ensure that innovations from the field of Sustainable Chemistry are communicated at global level. Such a dynamic bundling of expertise leads to new networking, on the basis of which - from experience – ideas grow. ISC3 can thus play a role as incubator for the transfer of new know-how into industrial applications.” (Umweltbundesamt, 2015).
60
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scp
Sustainable Chemistry – A concept with important links to waste management
MARK
Henning Friege N³ Nachhaltigkeitsberatung Dr. Friege & Partner, Scholtenbusch 11, D-46562 Voerde, Germany
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Sustainable Chemistry Waste reduction Hazardous waste Chemical leasing Sustainable development goals Recovery of resources
Sustainable Chemistry is an overarching concept encompassing the design, manufacture and use of efficient, effective, safe and more environmentally benign chemical products and processes. With respect to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, 2015), the Sustainable Chemistry concept may serve as an important tool to reach these objectives including a high number of targets for chemicals and waste management. Sustainable Chemistry might become a valuable contribution to present waste management issues: Recycling of waste and recovery of resources from waste fractions are often severely restricted by the chemical composition of used products. These restrictions include components, which turned out to be hazardous, mixed materials like plastics with numerous additives, composite materials, which cannot be separated properly like plastics/wood, or low concentrated scarce metals in electronic devices. Following the concept of Sustainable Chemistry, – higher resource efficiency and increasing use of waste-derived renewable resources without endangering food production, – use of substances, which are not only less toxic but also better degradable under natural conditions (“benign by design”), – design of products which allow recycling by avoidance of inseparable combinations of materials and firmly fixed modules (“design for recycling”), might be achieved. The paper aims to demonstrate the benefits of integrating waste management issues into the concept of Sustainable Chemistry to avoid further unilateral technical solutions, which do not take re-use or recovery of resources into account.
1. Introduction Residential and most commercial waste are nothing but crude mixtures of used or useless products, spoiled foodstuffs, remaining materials from construction and demolition, used packaging, etc. Each of the waste components is made from distinct materials based on certain raw materials and chemicals. With respect to the two main objectives of waste management, i.e. – disposal of residual waste safely to protect human health (urban hygiene) and the environment (water, soil, atmosphere, biodiversity), – recovery of materials and substances from waste with the aim to substitute virgin materials (resource conservation),
E-mail address: [email protected]. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scp.2017.08.001 Received 25 May 2017; Received in revised form 24 July 2017; Accepted 12 August 2017 2352-5541/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
it is obvious that the properties of chemicals serving as building blocks or additives in materials are crucial for successful disposal or recovery. Globalization of consumer products also means global application of chemicals used in these products and also global spread of these chemicals with waste, when the products come to their “end of life” (EoL). This leads to global availability also of hazardous chemicals as ingredients in certain goods and in waste as it has been investigated in the RiskCycle project (Bilitewski et al., 2011, 2013). The disposal of hazardous compounds in defined or mixed waste is a challenge for waste management not only in the countries where these substances have been produced, but everywhere in the world where they were applied and disposed of or recycled. We have to differ two cases: On one hand, we might be confronted with hazardous chemicals in waste. In this case, special methods
Sustainable Chemistry and Pharmacy 6 (2017) 57–60
H. Friege
– Synthesis and use of chemicals which are obviously less or nonhazardous and not persistent under environmental conditions – Design of materials and products with respect to resource recovery after use (“design for recycling”)
(neutralization, incineration at high temperature,…) must be used to ensure safe disposal. If waste of this type shows up in countries without an adequate industrial infrastructure, this may implicate severe problems endangering humans and environment, as it is known from many chemicals used in products decades ago. There is an enormous number of examples like PCBs banned years ago (Stockholm Convention) which are still found in many regions where they have never been produced, but used in transformers, small capacitors included in household appliances or as joint sealers in buildings. The problems caused by Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) like PCB need a world-wide approach (Weber et al., 2013). Disposal methods and capacities in most developing and emerging countries are not adequate to manage this type of waste. In this case, the double role of waste and valuables, i.e. contamination of used items containing valuable resources by dangerous compounds, is also a serious problem for industrialized countries, because recycling steps are restricted to incineration or other decomposition processes. On the other hand, recovery of valuable materials from waste (used paper, plastics, metals…) is often hampered by certain chemicals
2. The concept of sustainable Chemistry As to the production of chemicals being less hazardous and environmentally safe, there are some rules of thumb introduced in the 90ies which are known as “principles of green chemistry” (EPA, 1990; Anastas and Warner, 1998) including waste prevention (in production), targeted synthesis maximizing atom economy, and design of safer chemicals and products. Sustainable Chemistry as it has been developed in the last 10–15 years since a joint workshop of OECD and German Agencies (Umweltbundesamt, 2004) is an overarching concept. “Sustainable chemistry generally includes all aspects of a product related to sustainability e.g. social and economical aspects related to the use of resources the shareholders, the stakeholders and the consumers.” (Kümmerer and Clark, 2016). This concept includes the green chemistry approach as a tool on the molecular level, i.e. in the stage of synthesis, but going beyond this level by accounting “for not only the functionalities of a molecule that are necessary for its application but also their impact and significance at the different stages of its life cycle” (Kümmerer and Clark, 2016) including the last step when the materials and the product made hereof become waste. Sustainable Chemistry is characterized by the OECD as “a scientific concept that seeks to improve the efficiency with which natural resources are used to meet human needs for chemical products and services. Sustainable chemistry encompasses the design, manufacture and use of efficient, effective, safe and more environmentally benign chemical products and processes.” (OECD, 2015). Though world-wide accepted definitions for Sustainable Chemistry are still under development, the following summary based on recent studies and discussions may be taken as “state of the art” (Blum et al., 2017):
– which may not longer be used for certain purposes (e.g. cadmium stearate formerly used as stabilizer in PVC in Europe (European Commission, 2011)) – which are used for a certain scope of application, but should not be present in other applications based on the same raw material (e.g. oil based inks for printing of newspaper migrating into food packaging made from used paper (Pivnenko et al., 2016)) – which are not hazardous but a technical obstacle for the recovery process (e.g. certain combinations of metals in alloys which cannot be separated due to metallurgic reasons (Reuter and van Schaik, 2012)). These phenomena have a common ground and are linked to other phenomena being of enormous importance for waste managements strategies (“Seven general dilemmas” (Friege, 2012a, 2012b)). This also means that the road to “circular economy” (European Commission, 2015) is paved with a number of stumbling blocks:
– Sustainable chemistry contributes to a positive, long-term development in society, environment and economy. With new approaches and technologies it develops value-creating products and services for the needs of civil society. – Sustainable chemistry increasingly uses substances, materials and processes with the least possible adverse effects. Moreover, substitutes, alternative processes and recycling concepts are used, and natural resources are conserved. Thus, damage and impairments to human beings, ecosystems and resources are avoided. – Sustainable chemistry is based on a holistic approach, setting measurable targets for a continuous process of change. Scientific research and education for sustainable development in schools and vocational training serve as an important basis for this development.
– A mixture of several materials in one product leads to complicated and energy consuming recovery processes (increasing entropy by material mix), if indeed possible. In most cases, products made from numerous materials (i.e. electronic appliances, plastic products, functional textiles) cannot be recycled without severe loss of valuable materials. As a rule of thumb, recyclability depends on the number of separation steps and the price for valuables, which is obtained on the market (Dahmus and Gutowski, 2007), thus integrating the economic and the ecological dimension. – High dissipation of products is an obstacle for collection, i.e. entropy increases by dissipation. The twofold entropy problem is often underestimated by policy (De Man and Friege, 2016). – Depending on the character of the product in question, there is a time lag of some months, some years, or even some decades between the production of a good and its final fate as waste. There is severe information loss over time, i.e. the construction materials and chemicals used in a product becoming waste years after production are mostly not known. The content of materials and chemicals in a manufactured product often varies over time (Greenfield and Graedel, 2013) often discouraging recycling companies and impede investment in new technologies. Time is a scalar quantity – i.e. there is only one direction, and we cannot stop technical development.
Fig. 1 shows that Sustainable Chemistry has a number of intersections with other big issues of global development. As per definition of sustainability, it is not a firm target, but a process and an aim; the same is true for Sustainable Chemistry. With respect to the challenges described in the Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2015) this overarching concept may serve as an important tool to reach these objectives including a high number of targets for the use of chemicals and waste management. This will be worked out on the global level under the umbrella of the UNEP driving the SAICM process as well as the international conventions dealing with hazardous chemicals and hazardous waste within one branch (i.e. DTIE Chemicals and Waste Branch). In contrast to addressing the problems caused by unsafe application of chemicals and hazardous substances left over from use, the breakthrough of Sustainable Chemistry depends more on successful new business and marketing models than on more regulation, because green chemistry principles as well as the Sustainable Chemistry concept save
There is no chance to overcome these problems in general. But there are some obstacles which we can get out of the way and some borders which may be shifted: – Production of chemicals with less (hazardous) waste 58
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Chemical leasing inverts a supplier's commercial interest in a higher consumption of chemicals, because the supplier sells the functions performed by the chemical and not the chemical itself. The service accounted for functional units (number of pieces cleaned, amount of area coated, etc.) becomes the main basis for compensation. It shifts the focus from increasing the sales volume of chemicals to a value-added approach (UNIDO, 2016). Moreover, this business model means a shift towards waste reduction, because it is characterized by thinking about chemicals sales from a waste minimization and holistic life cycle perspective. This helps to establish nearly closed loop systems, to enhance know-how exchange between business partners and to incentivize resource efficiency. If necessary service is provided by the producer of the active ingredients (e.g. cleaning agents for hospitals), this also means better standards for occupational safety (and again less waste) in contrary to the application of these chemicals by unskilled workers (Schülke and Mayr, 2012).
Fig. 1. Sustainable Chemistry interfacing other global issues.
3.3. Reorganisation of the added-value chain
money in the long run and offer opportunities not only for chemical industry but also for other manufacturers along the value chain.
With respect to the production and sales of chemicals, tailor-made products and comprehensive solutions are of growing importance. These business models, which require numerous activities up and down the added-value chain, are partially driven by digitalization. In the following Table 1, some examples of recent developments in the branch of chemical fibres are listed (Bazzanella et al., 2017).
3. Waste management and its relation to Sustainable Chemistry 3.1. Less hazardous compounds Enhanced standards for registration, notification and regulation of chemicals and the development of better assessment tools to predict physical-chemical properties, toxicity, degradation under environmental conditions etc. (e.g. “in silico” methods, cf. (Ekins, 2007)) will probably reduce the number of hazardous chemicals in future applications. Moreover, technological breakthrough may help to avoid potentially hazardous substances still in use. Insulation materials may serve as an example: Rock wool and glass wool, together referred to as mineral wool, have been used for decades as a means of insulating buildings. Urea formaldehyde resins or phenol resins are mostly used as binders. The mineral substances exhibit a thermal conductivity of 30–40 mW/(m × K). The second largest group (by market share in Europe) are organic polymers, above all expanded poly-styrene as well as the less often used extruded polystyrene with a thermal conductivity of 30–40 mW/(m × K) and polyurethane with 20–30 mW/(m × K). All organic insulating materials must be treated with flame retardants. Phenol formaldehyde or urea formaldehyde resins used as binders as well as many brominated aromatic compounds used as flame retardants are severely restricted due to health risks. Both problems can be avoided by aerogels, i.e. gels based on silica with very small pores, which achieve a thermal conductivity of about 13 mW/(m × K). The smaller and more finely distributed the pores are, the lower the thermal conductivity through the insulating material.1 If nanoporous insulation material achieves its breakthrough on the market, several incremental steps towards sustainability can be taken: less hazardous properties, better insulation, better recyclability due to absence of flame retardants and binders.
3.4. BAT Significant contributions of Sustainable Chemistry to less waste production are also achieved by application of Best Available Techniques (BAT) as have been defined for many industry sectors in Europe (European Commission Joint Research Centre, 2012). Within the ISC3 preparatory project (www.isc3.org), research projects, pilot processes, and innovations already put on market were screened to find approaches towards Sustainable Chemistry (Bazzanella et al., 2017). This study focused on specific products and processes designed for construction, agriculture, medicine and other application areas. As a preliminary result one may state that there are numerous approaches involving waste reduction (e.g. new production processes) and use of regional waste streams as raw material. On the other hand, multi-layer or composite material including carbon fibre etc. have been put on market as innovations to decrease weight and thus CO2 emissions during application. Obviously, these products are not designed for recycling. At their end of life, recovery of resources from such materials is nearly impossible. It is therefore very important to define, develop, and implement Sustainable Chemistry to avoid solutions, which are not sustainable from the perspective of resource management. If trade-offs cannot be avoided they should at least be made transparent and discussed to find the best option for the case in question. 4. Conclusion With the development of guiding principles for Sustainable Chemistry, a first step has been taken together with the relevant stakeholders at national and international level to establish a common understanding of Sustainable Chemistry. Filling this model with life will be a central task of the International Sustainable Chemistry Collaborative Centre (ISC3) initiated by the German Government, which was launched in May 2017.2 The Sustainable Development Goals
3.2. Business models including waste minimization There are business models of growing importance, which include waste minimization, recovery operations or other measures, which are not limited to the chemical industry. Unnecessary production of waste as well as occupational hazards may be avoided by “chemical leasing” comprising many business models which are successfully applied in various sectors such as production of petrochemicals, automotive industry and manufacturing, food industry, agriculture or hospitals.
2 “ISC3 will be available as point of contact for subject-related topics in the field of Sustainable Chemistry. This field is very broad: Sustainable Chemistry often starts with the “clearing up” of hazardous chemical waste and ends with state-of-the-art synthesis methods, the inherent goal of which is safer materials coupled with minimum resource input. By analysing and assessing research, innovations and the accompanying development of the market, the centre should serve as a source of inspiration for the German
1 However, the energy input needed to produce aerogels is considerable due to the high pressures and temperatures; they are made by extracting the water from silica.
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Table 1 Development of business models in the branch of chemical fibres. Value added chain – forwards
Value added chain - backwards
Optimisation of production, use and re-use of fibres as further development in the pulp and paper industry (strategic approaches) Taking back by retailers of textiles produced or sold themselves as voluntary individual manufacturer responsibility Recovery and re-use of carbon fibres from composites (R & D) Optimisation of production, use and re-use of vegetable fibres as further development in the pulp and paper industry Increase in the use of biopolymers for specific purposes (e.g. BPA for agricultural foils)
Press, New York Oxford. Bazzanella A., Zeschmar-Lahl B., Friege H., 2017. Identification of Priority Topics in the Field of Sustainable Chemistry, in preparation. Study design and first results are published on 〈https://isc3.org/2017/03/results-from-the-isc3-project-identificationof-priority-topics-in-the-field-of-sustainable-chemistry-summary/〉. Bilitewski, B., Darbra, R.M., Barceló, D., 2011. Global Risk-Based Management of Chemical Additives I, The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry. 18 Springer (ISBN 978-3-642-248757). Bilitewski, B., Darbra, R.M., Barceló, D., 2013. Global Risk-Based Management of Chemical Additives II, The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry. 23 Springer (ISBN 978-3-642-34572-2). Blum, C., Bunke, D., Hungsberg, M., Roelofs, E., Joas, A., Joas, R., Blepp, M., Stolzenberg, H.C., 2017. The concept of sustainable chemistry: key drivers for the transition towards sustainable development. Sustain. Chem. Pharm. 5, 94–104. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1016/j.scp.2017.01.001. Dahmus, J.B., Gutowski, G.T., 2007. What gets recycled: an information theory based model for product recycling. Environ. Sci. Technol. 41, 7543–7550. De Man, R., Friege, H., 2016. Circular economy: European policy on shaky ground. Waste Manag. Res. 34 (2), 93–95. Ekins, S. (Ed.), 2007. Computational Toxicology: Risk Assessment for Pharmaceutical and Environmental Chemicals. John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken. European Commission, 2011. Regulation No 494/2011 of 20 May 2011 amendingRegulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council on REACH as regards Annex XVII (Cadmium), OJ L 134/2-134/5. European Commission Joint Research Centre, 2012. Revision of the Standard Texts Used in BREFs to Adapt Them to the IED Regime. 〈http://eippcb.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ reference/BREF/Codified_version_of_standard_text29_08_12.pdf〉. European Commission, 2015. Circular Economy Closing the Loop. 〈http://europa.eu/ rapid/press-release_IP-15-6203_en.htm〉 (Accessed 15 December 2015). Environmental Protection Agency, 1990. Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 of the U.S. (〈http://www2.epa.gov/green-chemistry/basics-greenchemistry#definition〉). Friege, H., 2012a. Material recovery from used electric and electronic equipment-alternative options for resource conservation. Waste Manag. Res. 30 (9S), 3–16. Friege, H., 2012b. Ressourcenschutz am Beispiel der Elektro- und Elektronik-altgeräte. II. Ansätze für einen effizienteren Umgang mit nicht erneuerbaren Ressourcen (conservation of resources with respect to waste from electric and electronic devices. II. approaches towards efficient management of non-renewable resources). Müll und Abfall 44 (6), 307–317. Greenfield, A., Graedel, T.E., 2013. The omnivorous diet of modern technology. Resour. Conserv. Recycl. 74, 1–7. Kümmerer, K., Clark, J., 2016. Green and sustainable chemistry. In: Heinrichs, H., Wiek, A., Martens, P., Michelsen, G. (Eds.), Textbook on Sustainability Science. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, pp. 43–60. OECD, 2015. 〈http://www.oecd.org/chemicalsafety/risk-management/ sustainablechemistry.htm〉 (Accessed 30 January 2016). Pivnenko, K., Olsson, M.E., Götze, R., Eriksson, E., Astrup, T.F., 2016. Quantification of chemical contaminants in the paper and board fractions of municipal solid waste. Waste Manag. 51, 43–54. Reuter, M., van Schaik, A., 2012. Opportunities and limits for recycling: a dynamicmodel-based analysis. MRS Bull. 37, 339–347. Schülke, Mayr, 2012. Chemikalienleasing – effiziente und nachhaltige Krankenhaushygiene (Chemical Leasing – Efficient and Sustainable Solution for Hospital Hygiene); 〈https://www.dbu.de/OPAC/ab/DBU-Abschlussbericht-AZ26035.pdf〉 (Accessed 11 May 2016). Umweltbundesamt, 2004. International Workshop on Sustainable Chemistry – Integrated Management of Chemicals, Products and Processes. Joint workshop by the Federal Environment Agency, OECD, the German Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, held in Dessau, 27–29 January 2004. 〈http://www. gdch.de/taetigkeiten/nch/inhalt/jg2004/dessau.pdf〉 (Accessed 15 April 2014). Umweltbundesamt, 2015. Bundling Expertise in the Field of Sustainable Chemistry, Fact Sheet. 〈http://www.global-chemicals-waste-platform.net/fileadmin/files/Summer_ School/Umweltbundesamt_2015.pdf〉 (Accessed 11 May 2016). United Nations, 2015. Sustainable Development Goals. 〈https://sustainabledevelopment. un.org/sdgs〉 (Accessed 24 November 2015). United Nations Industrial Development Organisation – UNIDO, 2016. Global Promotion and Implementation of Chemical Leasing Business Models in Industry, Ten years outlook, Vienna. Weber, R., Aliyeva, G., Vijgen, J., 2013. The need for an integrated approach to the global challenge of POPs management. Environ. Sci. Pollut. Res. 2013 (20), 1901–1906.
require holistic approaches like Sustainable Chemistry. The Sustainable Chemistry concept should be looked at as an important tool to approach the global agenda for 2030. It is obvious that the potential for applications is even higher for developing countries. As to the former (and also present) use of hazardous materials leading to huge piles of dangerous waste, we have to remain in cleaning up affected sites and grounds. The Sustainable Chemistry concept will help to decrease the generation of hazardous waste in future and also enable us to recover more used materials. Contributions from waste management to Sustainable Chemistry on one hand and new linkages between chemicals, product design and resource recovery on the other hand should be discussed also in the waste management community. Scientific work for both fields could stimulate each other. This is of special importance with respect to the discussion about circular economy. Apart from the physical impossibility of closing material loops up to 100% (which would need infinite energy according to the second principle of thermodynamics), there are a lot of feasible goals for less waste production and far more material recovery as compared to present practice, if the Sustainable Chemistry concept becomes mainstream for synthesis of chemicals and life cycle approaches of products. With respect to the ideas and examples presented in this article, it is recommended – To further develop the concept of Sustainable Chemistry with a strong link to waste and resource management, – To develop and implement “design-for-recycling” (DfR) rules for combinations of materials and chemicals, – To integrate resource management into innovative value added chains preferably together with companies and experts from the waste management branch, – To expand service oriented business models like “chemical leasing” in order to remain interest in waste reduction as an economic and ecological goal. Acknowledgements This paper includes results from the ISC3 project (www.isc3.org). The author gratefully acknowledges many comments by Hans-Christian Stolzenberg (German Environment Agency), Barbara Zeschmar-Lahl (BZL GmbH) and Andreas Borgmann, moreover discussions with Klaus Kümmerer (Leuphana University), Christopher Blum, Petra Greiner (German Environment Agency), Jutta Emig, Vassilios Karavezyris (Federal Environment Ministry), Andreas Förster, Alexis Bazzanella (DECHEMA e.V.). I greatly appreciated the comments of the peer reviewers. References Anastas, P., Warner, J., 1998. Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice. Oxford University
(footnote continued) government, but also for public institutions and enterprises worldwide. With the help of the network ISCnet being currently under construction, ISC3 will also function as a platform. In this way, ISC3 as multiplier will ensure that innovations from the field of Sustainable Chemistry are communicated at global level. Such a dynamic bundling of expertise leads to new networking, on the basis of which - from experience – ideas grow. ISC3 can thus play a role as incubator for the transfer of new know-how into industrial applications.” (Umweltbundesamt, 2015).
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