Instead of focusing on the efforts of individual persons and households, I think more effort should be focused on industrial symbiosis - identifying industrial waste and side streams that can be useful inputs into the products of other industries, and connecting those industries.
For example, you might have a local electricity-generating station that takes some of the steam that’s created as a side effect of their process, and sends that steam to an oil refinery located next door. The oil refinery has a water hook-up and sends regular water to power station for their power generation, but they also send their treated effluent water for the power plant to use in cleaning as well as stabilizing fly ash, and they also send over their flare gas as an extra energy source for generating power.
The oil refinery could send it’s excess gas to a gypsum board manufacturer just down the road; the gypsum board manufacturer could also get most of it’s gypsum from the power plant’s sulfur dioxide scrubbers.
The power station could also send more of it’s excess steam to a nearby pharmaceutical manufacturer; the pharmaceutical manufacturer could send some of the bio-sludge waste it produces to local farms as fertilizer, and the rest of the sludge might get processed into biofuel for the power station. Hot water from the pharmaceutical plant could be sent to the local wastewater treatment plant, which generates sludge, which could be sold to a soil remediation firm.
The power station could use it’s excess heat to heat a bunch of local homes, some local greenhouses, and then they could also send some more excess heat to a fish farm. The sludge from the fish farm could be used as fertilizer at local farms.
The power station’s fly ash and clinker could be sent to roadbuilders and cement manufacturers, and the oil refinery’s recovered sulfur could be sold to a sulfuric acid manufacturer.
Such a theoretical symbiosis could prevent 200,000 tons of fly ash and clinker and 80,000 tons of scrubber sludge from going into a local landfill; 130,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 4,300-5,300 tons of sulfur/sulfur dioxide being released into the air; and 1,000,000 cubic meters of sludge headed to either the landfill or the sea.
Oh, wait - that’s not fantasy, that’s the Kalundborg Eco-industrial Park in Denmark. It’s not 100% recycling, but it’s fucking glorious.
There’s also the Guitang Group in China. They have a massive farm that grows sugar cane, which is processed at their sugar refinery and then sold. But the sugar refining process generates spent molasses, so they built a plant that takes the spent molasses and creates alcohol, which they then also sell.
The alcohol plant also creates alcohol residue, so they built a fertilizer plant that makes the alcohol residue into fertilizer, which they use on their sugar cane farm.
The sugar refinery also has crushed sugar cane as a result of their processing, so they built a plant to turn the crushed sugar cane into pulp, then a paper mill to turn the pulp into paper, which is sold.
The pulp plant creates a black liquid as a side product, so they send that through an alkali recovery process; the recovered alkali is sent back to the pulp plant to create more pulp.
The alkali recovery process also creates a white sludge byproduct so they built a cement mill. They take the white sludge from the alkali recovery process, along with the filter sludge that comes out of the sugar refinery, and make cement.
So they wanted to sell sugar, but they’ve limited pollution and waste, improved their plantation’s output with inexpensive fertilizer, and also get to sell alcohol, paper and cement.
Instead of focusing on the efforts of individual persons and households, I think more effort should be focused on industrial symbiosis - identifying industrial waste and side streams that can be useful inputs into the products of other industries, and connecting those industries.
For example, you might have a local electricity-generating station that takes some of the steam that’s created as a side effect of their process, and sends that steam to an oil refinery located next door. The oil refinery has a water hook-up and sends regular water to power station for their power generation, but they also send their treated effluent water for the power plant to use in cleaning as well as stabilizing fly ash, and they also send over their flare gas as an extra energy source for generating power.
The oil refinery could send it’s excess gas to a gypsum board manufacturer just down the road; the gypsum board manufacturer could also get most of it’s gypsum from the power plant’s sulfur dioxide scrubbers.
The power station could also send more of it’s excess steam to a nearby pharmaceutical manufacturer; the pharmaceutical manufacturer could send some of the bio-sludge waste it produces to local farms as fertilizer, and the rest of the sludge might get processed into biofuel for the power station. Hot water from the pharmaceutical plant could be sent to the local wastewater treatment plant, which generates sludge, which could be sold to a soil remediation firm.
The power station could use it’s excess heat to heat a bunch of local homes, some local greenhouses, and then they could also send some more excess heat to a fish farm. The sludge from the fish farm could be used as fertilizer at local farms.
The power station’s fly ash and clinker could be sent to roadbuilders and cement manufacturers, and the oil refinery’s recovered sulfur could be sold to a sulfuric acid manufacturer.
Such a theoretical symbiosis could prevent 200,000 tons of fly ash and clinker and 80,000 tons of scrubber sludge from going into a local landfill; 130,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 4,300-5,300 tons of sulfur/sulfur dioxide being released into the air; and 1,000,000 cubic meters of sludge headed to either the landfill or the sea.
Oh, wait - that’s not fantasy, that’s the Kalundborg Eco-industrial Park in Denmark. It’s not 100% recycling, but it’s fucking glorious.
There’s also the Guitang Group in China. They have a massive farm that grows sugar cane, which is processed at their sugar refinery and then sold. But the sugar refining process generates spent molasses, so they built a plant that takes the spent molasses and creates alcohol, which they then also sell.
The alcohol plant also creates alcohol residue, so they built a fertilizer plant that makes the alcohol residue into fertilizer, which they use on their sugar cane farm.
The sugar refinery also has crushed sugar cane as a result of their processing, so they built a plant to turn the crushed sugar cane into pulp, then a paper mill to turn the pulp into paper, which is sold.
The pulp plant creates a black liquid as a side product, so they send that through an alkali recovery process; the recovered alkali is sent back to the pulp plant to create more pulp.
The alkali recovery process also creates a white sludge byproduct so they built a cement mill. They take the white sludge from the alkali recovery process, along with the filter sludge that comes out of the sugar refinery, and make cement.
So they wanted to sell sugar, but they’ve limited pollution and waste, improved their plantation’s output with inexpensive fertilizer, and also get to sell alcohol, paper and cement.