Waste Minimization and Molecular Nanotechnology: Toward Total Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

The issue of clean production has challenged many industries to initiate new approaches to tackle pollution problems. The traditional "end-of-pipe" treatment approach is no longer viewed as an adequate, stand-alone, pollution problem-solver. Increasing public awareness of the impact of industrial pollution, more stringent discharge standards, and escalating waste treatment and disposal costs have placed enormous pressure on industries to shift their paradigm of pollution prevention from the "end-of-pipe" treatment to waste minimization or even total elimination at the point of generation (source reduction). By reducing the energy and materials required to provide goods and services, an emerging new technology such as molecular nanotechnology (MNT) has the potential to provide more appealing products while improving environmental performance and total sustainability.

Therefore, the goals of this chapter are to: (a) provide an overview of waste minimization and its relationship to environmental sustainability; (b) portray the causes of sustainability problems and diagnose the defects of current industrial manufacturing processes in light of MNT, and; (c) analyze and extrapolate the prospect of additional capabilities that humanity may gain from the development of MNT that have the potential to ascertain total environmental sustainability.