Sustainable Manufacturing: the terms you need to know

What is Sustainable Manufacturing?

How to live more sustainably has become a key focus for individuals, organizations and governments the world over. For many industrial businesses, sustainability has risen to the top of the boardroom agenda, and it’s easy to see why.

Sustainable Manufacturing isn’t all about turning off machines when they’re not in use and recycling materials. Though not without its challenges, there are many reasons why becoming more sustainable can help a business. It can help to increase:

• productivity
• efficiency
• safety
• innovation
• competitive advantage
• resilience
• market share and growth
• recruitment and retention
• brand value and reputation
• profitability.

So, if you want to know your circular economy from your carbon footprint, take a look at our handy glossary of key terms.

Bio-based material

A material made from substances derived from living (or once-living) organisms. Though it can include materials such as leather and wood, it is more commonly used to describe modern materials that have undergone extensive processing, such as engineered wood (plywood, medium-density fiberboard) and bio-based plastic.

Bio-based plastic

A material made wholly or partially from natural, renewable feedstocks such as vegetable fats and oils, sugar cane, agricultural byproducts like corn starch, woodchips and microorganisms, instead of gasoline.

Bio-based plastics offer “realistic and viable alternatives for a number of applications using conventional plastics today,” according to the Bio-Based and Biodegradable Industries Association (BBIA). Sugar is processed to produce ethylene, for example, which is used to manufacture polyethylene – the most common plastic in use today.

Bio-based plastics have many different end of life options depending on the ingredients used to make them. Some can be recycled in the conventional plastics recycling streams, others can be composted in industrial composting facilities, for example.

Biodegradable plastic

A material capable of being broken down into smaller and smaller pieces, and eventually natural elements, by the action of living organisms. These natural elements include biomass (compost), carbon dioxide and water (if in an oxygen-rich environment such as an industrial composting facility), or methane, (if in an oxygen-poor environment such as landfill).

How long this degradation takes varies from product to product, ranging from weeks in some cases to years in others. This lack of timescale is what makes biodegradability different from compostability, although these terms are sometimes (mistakenly) used interchangeably.

By-product

Material that is produced as a result of making the intended primary product.

Carbon footprint

The total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) generated and released into the atmosphere as a result of a particular activity, individual, organization or population. Carbon dioxide represents around 80% of total greenhouse gases, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

A ‘net zero’ carbon footprint (or ‘carbon neutrality’) refers to any CO2 emissions being balanced by absorbing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere, or simply eliminating them altogether.

Carbon footprint is often calculated using the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) emissions factor which takes into account all six greenhouse gases (GHG) covered by the UNFCCC/Kyoto Protocol. Currently these are: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocar- bons (PFCs), and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), and nitrogen triflouride (NF3).*

Cellulose-based bioplastic

A material made of cellulose – the main substance found in the walls of plant cells. Often manufactured from softwood trees, cellulose-based plastics can be used for thermoplastics extruded films, electronics, sheets and rods. Its most common application is as an injection molded material.

Circular Economy

According to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, a circular economy is based on the principles of designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems. A circular economy could deliver benefits such as reducing pressure on the environment, improving the security of the supply of raw materials, increasing competitiveness, stimulating innovation, boosting economic growth, and creating jobs.

Circular Plastics Alliance

Launched by the EU Commission, the Circular Plastics Alliance (CPA) aims to boost the EU market for recycled plastics to 10 million tonnes by 2025. The CPA includes more than 175 organizations representing industry, academia and public authorities.

Compostable bioplastic

Unlike biodegradable plastic, this material is capable of being wholly broken down by the action of living organisms. In order for a material to qualify as compostable plastic, it must completely breakdown and decompose into natural elements within a relatively short time from its end of life disposal.

The European Standard for industrial compostable packaging, for example, requires that the plastic disintegrates after 12 weeks and completely biodegrades after six months.

Compostable bioplastics should go to an industrial composting facility. Non-compostable and non-biodegradable bioplastics should go to a mechanical recycling facility where material is collected, washed, melted and transformed into raw material for a new productive process, along with oil-based polymers suitable for recycling.

Eco-friendly (or environmentally friendly)

A widely used term which means “not harmful to the environment”. Many products are marketed as being eco-friendly, however the packaging or label often don’t explain why and the claim isn’t supported by an appropriate third-party organization such as the Fairtrade Foundation or Made Safe.

Due to the term frequently being used to describe everything and nothing, there are calls for it to be substituted for terms with more specific definitions such as biodegradable and bio-based.

Ellen Macarthur Foundation

A UK-registered charity which engages with business, policymakers, education and institutions to accelerate the transition to a circular economy . It was founded by Dame Ellen MacArthur, the famed long-distance yachtswoman who held the world record for the fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe from 2005 to 2008.

End of life disposal

The final stage of a product’s or material’s lifecycle once its useful life has ended. The product waste will be disposed of in landfill or incineration, recycled, recovered, reprocessed or reused as per the waste hierarchy.

Environmental impact

The effects that taking a material, processing it, using it and discarding it will have on the environment.

Feedstock

A feedstock is the raw material to supply or fuel a machine or industrial process, such as crude oil or coal.

Greenhouse gases

Gases in Earth’s atmosphere that let sunlight pass through but not the heat that the sunlight brings. The main greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons. See carbon footprint for the six greenhouse gases (GHG) covered by the UNFCCC/Kyoto Protocol.

Industrial composting

This is very different to the compost heap you may have in your garden at home. Industrial composting processes large volumes of municipal / residential and commercial waste, with compost windows (long rows of piled compost) weighing thousands of pounds.

The temperatures inside these compost windows is far higher than home composting because the composted materials are shredded, turned frequently and more carefully controlled. Therefore, many products labeled “suitable for industrial composting” will compost in this controlled environment but will not compost at home or in the natural land, water or marine environments.

Lifecycle assessment: cradle to grave

Sometimes referred to as ‘cradle to grave’, this is the calculation of a material or product’s embodied carbon content, from raw material extraction and processing (cradle), through manufacturing, distribution and use, to the recycling or end of life disposal (grave).

Pre-consumer waste

Pre-consumer waste is material that has typically not yet left the manufacturing facility and is reintroduced back into the production process or sold to a third-party buyer. Examples include defective products. Pre-consumer waste does not include byproduct, which is also not a waste.

Post-consumer waste

Post-consumer waste is material routinely discarded once it has reached the end of its useful life. The benefit of collecting and recycling this material is two-fold, it prevents items from potentially ending up in landfill or escaping into the environment and it reduces reliance on finite raw materials.

Renewable feedstock

A renewable feedstock is a natural resource that can replenish itself; it often refers to annual crops such as corn, cereals and sugar beets or perennial cultures such as cassava and sugar cane.

Single-use plastic

A material that is designed to be used once and discarded or recycled. Commonly applies to packaging, disposable cutlery, consumer products and healthcare items.

Starch-based bioplastic

A material made from complex blends of starch with biodegradable or compostable plastics. These blends help increase properties such as water resistance, tensile strength and heat tolerance, as well as processing and mechanical properties. Starch-based films are increasingly used for packaging applications such as magazine wrappings or fruit and vegetable bags.

Sustainable manufacturing

The creation of products using materials, processes and design that minimizes negative environmental impacts and conserves energy and natural resources while balancing financial business objectives.

Thermoplastic

A material which becomes soft when heated and hard when cooled. As it can be molded into any shape, thermoplastic is one of the most common plastic materials. It is used for a wide range of applications, from consumer goods and machine parts, to medical equipment and packaging.

Virgin plastic

A material that hasn’t been previously used or processed.

Waste Hierarchy

A tool used to set priorities for efficient waste management. It ranks processes according to resource and energy consumption from the most to least favorable method.

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