UNSUSTAINABLE PRODUCT

Unsustainable Product

Unsustainable Product

Introduction

Metals have contributed to the technological progress of society for an extraordinary long time and are still a key material in our society. This is unlikely to change in the future. However, the source of the metals has and will change in the foreseeable future. Historically, metals had such a high value that they were reused. However, in modern society increasingly more metals are used in a dissipative way. The use of metals has also rapidly increased throughout society. This had led to the use of lower concentrations of ores for the production of metals. The use of lower quality resources may have led to increased costs of these materials if it were not for technological progress in mining, ore beneficiation, and metal production technology. However, with the lower concentrations found in ores used today the potential for environmental pollution has increased. It is estimated that annually more than 6.4 x 109 metric tons of ore is extracted from the earth, of which more than 90% is discarded as mine and mill wastes. With the increasing volume of ores used, the amount of energy needed to extract and process the ores has also increased dramatically. This is unsustainable from an environmental and (long-term) economic perspective. (Ayres 2007, 145-173)

This paper discusses unsustainable production and usage of Iron (steel). Iron has been chosen due to its huge production and wide use in every sector. The product of system that is unsustainable and if proper research and working is done on this aspect then it can be made sustainable. This paper also provide a basic structure of redesigning of this metal to make it more sustainable.

Discussion

Sustainable production allows recovering part of the metals entering the industrial society, reducing the need for the extraction of resources from the natural environment. Sustainable production will save natural resources, reduce pollution, and save energy. The energy savings depend on the energy needed to recover and upgrade the metals from the waste streams compared to the energy needed to extract the ores from the natural environment. (Michaelis 2000, 133-158)

Primary production involves metals produced from ore, whereas secondary production involves sustainable metals or scrap. This term is not an expression of the quality of the final product. Sustainable metals can come from three streams: home scrap, new scrap, and old scrap (postconsumer) (Fig. 1). Home scrap is produced in the metal-producing plant and is the result of inefficiencies or material losses in the plant. New scrap is scrap that comes from the manufacturing industry that purchased the metal. Both for home and for new scrap, the material composition is well-known, and therefore these types of scrap demand a higher price in the global scrap market. Old scrap is scrap recovered from a waste stream after consumption of the metal-containing products. The exact composition of old scrap is not known, which may limit sustainable production due to contamination with other metals that may be difficult or impossible to remove in the sustainable production ...