Effluents and products formerly considered as leaving the industrial system are now considered to be a part of the system and a company's intrinsic responsibility. Industrial ecology requires substantial recycling, including the use of one plant's waste stream as feed for another plant, and therefore requires coordination, planning, and perhaps proximity all of which could make it more difficult for it to achieve widespread use. To carry out an industrial-ecology program, we require tools to help us to understand the environmental and system consequences of design choices. An industrial-ecology program should include an examination of alternative manufacturing processes and alternative paths to the same or similar processes. This is a classic and fundamental problem of chemical engineering, but it requires new tools to explore a wider universe of possibilities and the consequence of alternative paths.
Similar questions arise in metals processing and other industrial process streams.
A key component of industrial ecology is analyzing the environmental effects of all materials in manufacture, use, and disposal. Companies find that the use of the industrial-ecology approach in the design process provides them with more options for reducing the human health and ecological effects of their products and processes. However, its use is in its infancy. The information, planning, standards, and societal changes needed to implement this concept on a sufficient scale to make a difference are still lacking. The problem of implementation is made more difficult by the fragmentation of industry and, to some extent, by the present trend toward decentralization and devolution of hitherto vertically integrated industries.