What is Industrial Ecology?

Industrial Ecology promotes enhanced sustainability by stimulating innovations in the reuse of waste materials. The wastes or by-products of one industry are used as inputs in another industry, thereby closing the material loop of industrial systems and minimizing waste.

• Waste and by-products must be reused as input materials in a systematic way to close the material cycle as efficiently as possible;
  
• Loss caused by dispersion must be minimized. This refers to products such as fertilizers, tyres, or solvents that may be dispersed into the environment and there is an obvious need to minimize the harmful effects and design of these products.
  
• Maintaining the material balance. In material flow terms, this means ensuring that not more of a particular resource is used in one year than the amount of the resource produced in that same year.
  
• Keeping renewable and non-renewable resources as long as possible in the material cycles, unless this is not environmentally desirable.
  
• Energy must rely less on fossil hydrocarbons, while stimulating the use of renewable energy as much as possible.

Download About Industrial Ecology: About Industrial Ecology.pdf

Download Viviane Clément's Abstract (2009): Industrial Ecology in NSW.pdf