Pollution Prevention: A New Paradigm for Engineering Education

It is estimated that our materials-dominated society consumes about 10 metric tons of raw materials per person per year in the production of consumer goods. Within 6 months of extraction or production of these materials, 94% of them become waste. More efficient manufacturing practices are needed to lessen the demands for raw materials and to reduce the amounts and toxicity of waste materials. It is estimated that 70% of this waste material could be eliminated through better design decisions and reuse of materials. Engineering education has evolved into fairly segregated disciplines which focus on narrowly defined design and manufacturing functions, often without consideration of the environmental consequences of these functions. This is no longer the case in industry, however, where pollution prevention and waste minimization have become very important. Unfortunately, most of our engineering graduates are not prepared to step into a role where "green engineering" principles are espoused. We must quickly incorporate the "green engineering" principles into the engineering curriculum in all disciplines to ensure that all engineering graduates understand the environmental and economic consequences of engineering decisions. This paper describes methods that can be used to introduce the principles of pollution prevention, environmentally conscious products, processes and manufacturing systems. Students will learn the impacts of wastes from manufacturing and post-use product disposal, environmental cycles of materials, sustainability, and principles of environmental economics. Materials selection, process and product design, and packaging are also addressed.