Waste reduction product redesign

Redesign of a manufacturing or service process provides opportunities for waste reduction, productivity improvement, and safety enhancement. Consider the example of a company that made a product used in the manufacturing of hybrid car batteries. Production occurred in a 9-step manual batch process. The process caused potential exposures of nanoparticles and titanium tetrachloride gas to employees at each step. The redesign of the production process changed the way the final nanoproduct was manufactured. New capital equipment was purchased that eliminated... 

Source reduction includes any in-plant actions to reduce the quantity or the toxicity of the waste at the source. Examples include equipment modification, design and operational changes of the process, reformulation or redesign of products, substitution of raw materials, and use of environmentally benign chemical reactions. 

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