Driven by legal mandates and consumer demand, sustainable businesses will be those that recognize the need for extended responsibility for their products beyond the point of sale. One strategy gaining increasing attention throughout the world is the production and sale of Zero-to-Landfill products - products that contain nothing that is disposed of at the end of their useful life. A product take-back process is required to ensure products that reach the end of their useful lives are reclaimed for reuse, remanufacturing, or recycling. But can companies develop products that are truly zero-to-landfill? What must manufacturers do to deliver products offering this environmental beneficence? The stakeholders in a sustainable enterprise are considered, and the desire for zero-to-landfill products from their perspectives will be examined. Implications for government regulations, reverse logistics, product design and manufacturing, and for corporate profits are examined. The emphasis will be on how such a strategy will impact today's design and manufacturing engineers. Through the use of representative examples, it will be shown that many of the requisite behaviors and processes are being implemented, but that it is still early to quantify the impacts and to understand the emergence of unforeseen consequences.
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ASME 2006 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and
Exposition
November 5–10, 2006
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Conference Sponsors:
- Management Division, Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis Division, Technology and Society Division
ISBN:
0-7918-4779-9
PROCEEDINGS PAPER
What Will It Take to Deliver a Zero-to-Landfill Product?
Jeffrey R. Boyer
Jeffrey R. Boyer
Plug Power, Inc.
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Jeffrey R. Boyer
Plug Power, Inc.
Paper No:
IMECE2006-15944, pp. 215-226; 12 pages
Published Online:
December 14, 2007
Citation
Boyer, JR. "What Will It Take to Deliver a Zero-to-Landfill Product?." Proceedings of the ASME 2006 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. Engineering Technology Management: Engineering Business Management, Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis, Technology and Society. Chicago, Illinois, USA. November 5–10, 2006. pp. 215-226. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/IMECE2006-15944
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