Pollution prevention: A new paradigm for engineering education

It is estimated that our materials-dominated society consumes about 10 metr ic 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. Engin eering education has evolved into fairly segregated disciplines which focus on narrowly defined design and manufacturing functions, often without cons ideration 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 enginee ring graduates are not prepared to step into a role where "green engineerin g" principles are espoused. We must quickly incorporate the "green engineer ing" principles into the engineering curriculum in all disciplines to ensur e that all engineering graduates understand the environmental and economic consequences of engineering decisions. This paper describes methods that ca n be used to introduce the principles of pollution prevention, environmenta lly conscious products, processes and manufacturing systems. Students will learn the impacts of wastes from manufacturing and post-use product disposa l, environmental cycles of materials, sustainability, and principles of env ironmental economics. Materials selection, process and product design, and packaging are also addressed.