Sustainable Materials Management Basics

Sustainable materials management (SMM) is a method for more effectively utilising and reusing materials over their entire life cycle. It symbolizes a shift in how our culture views natural resource management and environmental protection. An SMM approach looks at how materials are used throughout their life cycle in order to:

• Use materials in the most efficient way possible

•  Focus on utilizing less

• Reducing  hazardous substances and environmental consequences 

• Ascertain that we have sufficient resources to address current and future needs.

Significance of Sustainable materials

The way we use materials in our society has a big impact on our economic and environmental future. As the world’s population and economies develop, global competition for finite resources will become more intense. In a resource-constrained future, more productive and less damaging material use helps our society remain economically competitive, adds to our prosperity, and protects the environment.

During the last century, material consumption in the United States and around the world grew substantially. Global raw material use increased at roughly double the rate of population growth over the twentieth century, according to the Annex to the G7 Leaders’ declaration. Raw material consumption has increased by 0.4 percent for every one percent increase in GDP. The ecosystem has suffered as a result of this increased consumption, with habitat degradation, biodiversity loss, highly pressured fisheries, and desertification among the consequences. Food loss and waste in the United States alone wastes 140 million acres of agricultural land, 5.9 trillion gallons of blue water, 778 million pounds of pesticides, 14 billion pounds of fertilizer, 664 billion kWh of energy, and emits 170 million MT of greenhouse gases. Materials management is also linked to 42 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Our economy and society will suffer if we do not create more productive and sustainable ways to extract, use, and manage materials, as well as shift the link between material consumption and growth. 

Aspects of the Life Cycle

Throughout their lives, materials have an impact on the environment. Raw material acquisition, materials manufacture, production, use/reuse/maintenance, and waste management are the major stages in a material’s life cycle.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

LCA is a method for making better decisions by gaining a better understanding of the human health and environmental effects of products, processes, and activities. This can include a review of a product’s or process’s environmental, water, land, and energy impacts, as well as potential alternatives.

Materials that are environmentally friendly

1. Natural

Synthetic, man-made materials are frequently poisonous or harmful. Many of them do not biodegrade and can accumulate in the environment to dangerous amounts. Plastic, for example, can be replaced with wood, and synthetic materials can be replaced with hemp or organic cotton.

2. Renewable

While some non-renewable natural resources, such as iron and aluminum are abundant and may be recycled indefinitely, many rare earth metals, as well as metals like lead, antimony, zinc, and silver, are in short supply. Mining and extracting metals also consumes a lot of energy and harms the environment.

3. Non-toxic and non-harmful

You should be concerned about more than simply the final product. Toxic chemicals are frequently used in the manufacturing process. Make sure you understand the lifetime of the materials you’re utilizing and that you’re not using resources that were created in a detrimental manner.

Efforts to ensure long-term viability

Models of the Product Life Cycle

Many government agencies, entrepreneurs, scientists, and non-governmental groups are spearheading attempts to define and conceive a closed loop lifecycle of product and materials management, and many of these efforts are comparable and overlapping. While these product lifecycle models are similar to SMM, they focus mostly on material end-of-life management, whereas SMM focuses on the environmental implications of materials, goods, and services, such as eutrophication , acidification, ozone layer depletion, and global warming

Circular Economy

The Circular Economy is defined by the United Kingdom’s Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP) as an alternative to the traditional take, make, waste economy that keeps resources in use for as long as possible, extracts the maximum value from materials while they are in use, and then recovers the materials to generate new products at the end of their service life.

Example, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation works with businesses, universities, and governments around the world to develop a circular economy that is restorative and regenerative by design, aiming to keep products, components, and materials at their highest use and value at all times, distinguishing between biological and technical cycles.

Recycling in a Closed Loop

A material is caught at the end of its life cycle and reintroduced into the production process to create a new product in closed loop recycling.

Conclusion

Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) is becoming more widely recognized as a policy strategy that can help to achieve green growth while also addressing the problems faced by continued global economic and demographic growth. One of the fundamental problems of the SMM strategy is successfully addressing the environmental repercussions that might occur over the life-cycle of materials, which frequently spans international borders and involves a diverse set of economic actors.

Thus, Sustainable materials management (SMM) is a novel strategy to improving public health and environmental protection by assessing and prioritizing solid waste management in a more comprehensive way. Sustainable materials management (SMM) is a novel strategy to improving public health and environmental protection by assessing and prioritizing solid waste management in a more comprehensive way.