Indictment Against Manufacturing?

I have more or less sat on the sideline of the public debate about Titan Cement since its inception – mostly because it has taken me awhile to gather my thoughts but also sadly because I wanted to avoid offending a noble cause with unsolicited commentary. It was a recent post about the question of industrial development that has prompted my curiosity in this meditation. And that’s just what this is – a few random thoughts intended to illuminate another point of view. To the reader, please do not look for structured argument or definitive conclusion.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was shooting pool with a friend, having a fantastic discussion about the concept of leisure. I often joke that two of the greatest inventions of the modern world are hot water heaters and refrigeration. I contend that it is the gratuitous nature of our existence; our demand for elective goods and services, that is primarily to blame for loose cannons in industry. There are few of us who are prepared to return to a strictly subsistence lifestyle. This leaves me wondering as to the real nature of the manufacturing debate – should we be manufacturing at all? Or should we accept our manufacturing nature and focus on being more conservative about our process? I would suggest that the latter is correct.

Humans have been “manufacturing” almost as long as they have been walking upright. It was our early ancestors that figured out that napping flint, chert, obsidian and other naturally occurring stone was a great way to make tools for hunting, etc. At the outset manufacturing had both positive and negative consequences. The act of napping stone was singularly dangerous to the craftsman because small fragments of razor sharp stone could easily fly into his/her eyes – thereby causing blindness. However, for hungry tribesmen this was a calculated risk given the likelihood of securing food. This was arguably an invention of necessity. We could’ve remained vegetarians. We were even more clever when we figured out that baking clay made that natural, plastic medium rigid and durable – facilitating methods of storage in the form of crockery. We spent the last millennium learning how to make things to make our lives easier, happier, safer, wealthier, and more beautiful – and only now are we finally concerned with making it cleaner. We could spend the next millennium debating the merits of all goods and services, but it is not likely that we will ever collectively agree on what we should and should not be making. Therefore, it is my assertion that because manufacturing is so intertwined with our collective existence, we must first evaluate the two biggest problems with pollution associated with manufactured goods; fuel, which is required to extract and deliver raw materials, make and deliver goods, use, maintain and destroy goods; and post-consumer waste.

As a world culture we have become very good at manufacturing. I don’t know of any manufacturing facility that is in the business of being inefficient – ergo losing money. It is amazing how efficient they can be. In fact, they are often far more efficient in the use of raw materials and embodied energy than individual craftsmen. I visited one such facility earlier this year, which specializes in making wood windows. From my observations it appeared that, from the standpoint of raw materials, there was nearly zero waste – the smallest fragments of wood are reprocessed into finger-jointed material for use in more windows, and the last remnants of sawdust are burned to help heat the plant in the minus 52degree Minnesota winters. The good people of Warroad take great pride in their facility and in their products. Categorically, this manufacturing facility is part of a greater wood products industry, which is ultimately dominated by local, regional, national and global business and political interests. It is industry and government that make and implement policy with both positive and negative consequences. Let’s take “free trade” for example. It was recently explained to me by a local agricultural professional that the fruit seedlings his farm plants annually are first germinated somewhere in South America because its cheaper to start the plants overseas and ship them back than to grow them here in the first place. It sounds dubious and I wonder how our air quality might improve just by eliminating unnecessary fuel from this “manufacturing” process. There is nothing qualitatively different about a fruit plant germinated in South America and one germinated here. This is a business decision underwritten by bad politics.

Landfills are overflowing with waste – much of which is toxic. At some point, some part of every made thing ends up in a landfill. Discarded electronics end up in third world countries where they are dismantled and wiring components burned to remove insulation; a practice that puts people at risk of dioxin poisoning. http://cbll.net/ci/enveng Pharmacological waste contaminates water and food supplies. Polyurethane foam insulation, now considered to be the savior of domestic home energy is at least a second cousin of auto-fluff, you know, the “hazardous waste” that was going to occupy Hugo Neu. Ironic how we don’t want it in the ground but there is increasing demand for its use. Manufactured problems require manufactured solutions. Recycling as we know it is a manufacturing process subject to the same problems as an initial manufacturing process, and perhaps worse. There are methods for alternative use which can be applied to our trash that will keep it out of factories and landfills. (See earthship link below) Smart, motivated minds may have ideas of their own.

I can’t think of too many manufactured goods that don’t represent some kind of environmental hazard either in production, end-use or disposal. Some of the more inert commodity items are things like glass and my favorite construction material, concrete whose active ingredient happens to be portland cement. Recent discussions about Titan Cement have caused me to think about this material in a somewhat different light. It’s like going to court to testify on behalf of my best friend for the delinquent actions of his evil step-parents. You see, aside from a few elective admixtures like plasticizers and dyes, all of the components that make up cement and subsequently concrete come directly from the earth. Early Romans were the first to demonstrate the viability of pozzolan cement as a building material. Many of their early structures such as the Pantheon remain intact today. The technology for making cement and concrete was largely forgotten in the Middle Ages but was later resurrected and modern portland cement was invented in the early 1800s. At some point it was discovered that concrete could be combined with deformed steel to create an impressively strong material. (For those of you who care, these two materials are ideally suited to one another because they have similar thermal deformation characteristics.) Throughout its history, the manufacture of cement involved the process of burning. Presumably in the early days the likely fuel was wood, a renewable resource. However in modern manufacturing, wood has largely been replaced with more abundant fossil fuels. It seems however, that the business end of the cement industry has found a clever way to supplement its fuel stocks with our post-consumer waste under the guise of recycling. As farcical as this may seem it apparently has in some way been endorsed by the EPA if by no other mechanism than its failure to regulate. There are many cement kilns already in operation in the US whose downwind effects are destroying fragile ecosystems and food supplies nationwide. (See enclosed article in red.) This problem is now weighing heavily in the minds of New Hanover County residents. It seems to me that since our prevailing winds are from the north and east, a polluted air mass to the north would more than likely migrate to our west (away from New Hanover County). Ironically under this assumption, our neighbors would suffer more adverse effects of such an operation than the immediate vicinity. (3 cement links included.) Likewise, we will continue to be the host to polluted air masses downwind from abroad through global wind and water migration patterns. Morally speaking, it seems from the continued public environmental debate that there is no place on the planet suitable to build a cement plant. However, I can’t imagine a world without bridges, roads, buildings, modern cities, sculpture, plazas and fountains, bank vaults, walkways, swimming pools and all of the other things that we rely upon to define our way of life. Cement is literally the glue that holds our human world together. A couple of hundred jobs is certainly not an adequate incentive to burden a fragile ecosystem with a legacy of irreversible pollution. Seduced by the illusion of economic development, politicians continue to make decisions based on one erroneous assumption – that the Bush-era EPA has the best interest of the people and the planet in mind. Pardon my naiveté, but it seems easy enough to ban the burning of tires and other toxic waste. I smell collusion when there are clearly better alternatives. It is through improved energy policy that the problems with manufactured pollution will begin to erode and it is required by each of us to seek the council of forward-thinking officials who are not afraid of effective regulation. The campaign against Titan is a noble cause, but I would hate to win the battle and lose the war. One final thought. While it is possible to temper industrial waste with political will, it is equally important that we, from time to time, reevaluate our dependence on stuff.

George Carlin “Stuff “ skit

Earthship

Cement Links

• http://www.notoxicburning.org/facts.html
• http://www.notoxicburning.org/2007mercury.html
• http://www.cementkiln.com/

EARTHJUSTICE/EIP REPORT: DANGEROUS MERCURY POLLUTION FROM UNREGULATED CEMENT KILNS IN U.S. ABOUT TWICE AS HIGH AS LEVELS PREVIOUSLY PROJECTED BY EPA

EPA Ignored Problem For 10+ Years Even Though Some Kilns Emit More Mercury Than Power Plants; Report Focuses on Cement Kilns in AL, CA, IA, IL, MD, MI, MT, NY, OR, SC, TX and WA.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – July 23, 2008 – For more than a decade after Congress told it to curb dangerous mercury pollution from cement kilns across the nation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refused to take action. Now, a new study from Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) documents the consequences of the EPA’s failure: Cement kilns emit mercury pollution – a threat to the health of pregnant women and children – at more than twice the level estimated as recently as 2006 by the EPA, which only started to collect data on the problem in 2007.

The unregulated pollution from cement kilns is emitted in or nearby many major U.S. urban areas and also within a few miles of such major bodies of water as the Chesapeake Bay, Lake Huron and the San Francisco Bay. Mercury pollution already has impaired rivers, lakes, and streams throughout the United States, making certain fish unsafe to eat. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8 percent of women of childbearing age in America already have mercury in their bodies at levels high enough to put their babies at risk of birth defects, loss of IQ, learning disabilities and developmental problems.

Entitled “Cementing a Toxic Legacy? How EPA Has Failed to Control Mercury Pollution From Cement Kilns,” the Earthjustice/EIP report outlines specific recommendations for EPA and state agency action based on the following key conclusions: