April 11, 2006

Design for

EnvironmentJeff Dahmus & Alex Thiriez

Outline

1. DfE Practice

2. DfE Approaches

3. Green Labeling

Government

Computers

Electronics

Durable Goods

Buildings

Practice

Win-wins?

• Energy/material efficiency results in

lower utility/material costs.

• A good environmental profile keeps

employees, customers and

governments happy ☺☺☺☺

What to improve in a product?

• Look at the LCA to see which lifecycle stage (material production, manufacturing, use, end-of-life) has the greatest environmental impact.

• First focus your efforts on this stage. Then dedicate your time to the others.

• Gage your improvements with SLCAs or full LCAs

Source: http://www.moea.state.mn.us/publications/betterbydesign.pdf

DfE Toolkit:

1. Design to minimize material usage

2. Design for disassembly

3. Design for recycling and use of recycled

materials

4. Design for remanufacturing

5. Design to minimize hazardous materials

6. Design for energy efficiency

7. Design to meet regulations and

standards

One for each day of the week !!!

DfE Toolkit1. Design to minimize material usage

• Objective: Reducing material usage –

dematerialization - over the life of the product

(not only in the product, but also in

manufacturing, packaging…)

• Examples

– Reducing computer packaging (reduces material at

end-of-life).

– Avoiding paint use by instead using colored plastic

body panels (reduces material at manufacturing).

– Selling services, not goods (reduces material at end-

of-life, and overall)

Success Stories- Dematerialization

Interface carpets

Problem: carpet life is governed by high-wear areas (20% of the carpet gets 80% of the wear)

Solution: modular carpet tiles that can be changed individually; selling carpeting as a service, not a good.

Result: extends product life by a factor of 5.

Success Stories- Dematerialization

Xerox CorporationProblem: lack of

environmentally acceptable packaging

Solution: replace Styrofoam packaging with "corrupad" and molded pulp made from post-consumer recycled materials

Result: Improved customer satisfaction and savings of about $ 2 million a year.

DfE Toolkit2. Design for disassembly

• Objective: Make disassembly – either manual or

automated – simple, to allow for easier

component reuse, material recovery, and

hazardous material removal.

• Examples

– Using mechanical fasteners instead of glue

– Modularizing products

– Isolating hazardous materials

Joints suitable for Disassembly

“Design for environment surprisingly coincides very well with design for manufacturability”

- Development engineer at IBM

Source: http://www.moea.state.mn.us/publications/betterbydesign.pdf

Good to Bad Plastic-to-Plastic Joints

Disassembly Times

Use these tables to approximate the disassembly time for a product.

Example:

3. Design for Recycling and Use of Recycled

Materials

• Objective: Allow the use of recycled material

inputs and the recycling of products and

production byproducts at end-of-life.

• Examples

– Metal recovered from end-of-life automobiles is

recycled into new automobiles (as opposed to

aluminum cans which are not recycled into new

aluminum cans)

– Downcycling – recycling

engineering plastics into

park benches

DfE Toolkit

Cross-section of a Snack Bag

• Looks simple…easy to recycle?

Source: http://www.eng.uc.edu/~pbishop/69

• Insert Bras recyclability ratings

Design for Recycling Techniques:

• Eco-industrial park in Kalundborg, Denmark

• Waste = food

Downcycling - Recycled PVC goes into:

window frame coextrusion

Garden hoses

From: http://www.bpfwindowsgroup.com/downloads/files/Windows%20-

%20A%20Transparent%20Case%20for%20PVC.pdf

Carpet Undercoating

Shoe Soles

DfE Approaches4. Design for remanufacturing

• Objective: Allow component or product life to

be extended through remanufacturing.

• Examples

– Printer cartridges

– Kitchenaid mixers

DfE Approaches4. Design for remanufacturing

Marcotte Mining Machinery Services

5. Design to minimize hazardous materials

• Objective: Minimize hazardous materials in final

product and in production stages

• Examples

– Lead-free solder

– ROHS – Restriction Of the use of certain

Hazardous Substances in electrical and

electronic equipment– Lead

– Mercury

– Cadmium

– Hexavalent chromium

– Poly-brominated biphenyls (PBB)

– Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE)

DfE Approaches

5. Design to minimize hazardous materials

• Chemicals identified in the EPA’s Industrial

Toxics Project

DfE Approaches

•Benzene•Cadmium and compounds•Carbon tetrachloride•Chloroform•Chromium and compounds •Cyanides•Dichloromethane•Lead and components

•Mercury and compounds•Methyl ethyl ketone•Mercury isobutyl ketone•Nickel and compounds•Tetrachloroethylene•Toluene•Trichloroethane•Trichloroethylene•Xylenes

DfE Approaches5. Design to minimize hazardous materials

• the charm is 99% lead; the safety threshold for lead content in jewelry is 0.06%

Boston Globe, March 24, 2006

DfE Toolkit5. Design to minimize hazardous materials

DfE Toolkit5. Design to minimize hazardous materials

• uses sodium rhodizonate• turns pink or red with as littleas 1-2 micrograms of lead

• the darker the color, thehigher the lead content

DfE Approaches

• Objective: Produce energy efficient products to

reduce the impact of the use phase

• Examples

– (Some) Hybrid automobiles

– Energy Star appliances

6. Design for energy efficiency

DfE Approaches6. Design for energy efficiency

DfE Approaches6. Design for energy efficiency

DfE Approaches

• WEEE – Waste Electrical and Electronic

Equipment

• ROHS – Restriction Of the use of certain

Hazardous Substances in electrical and

electronic equipment

• End-of-Life Vehicle Recycling in the EU

• Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards

• …

7. Design to meet regulations and standards

Eco-Labeling

Energy Star

EU Flower

Nordic Swan