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ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES ^ ^ 



Box 1. Low-Waste/No- Waste Technologies -the Key to 

 Attaining Global Environmental Goals 



If global environmental goals are to be attained, governmental policies must 

 encourage development of low-waste/no-waste technologies. The efforts of 

 the Du Pont Company provide one example of the potential of American in- 

 dustry to promote environmentally benign technologies. Du Pont invented 

 nylon and has produced it in the United States for more than 50 years. The 

 processes by which the final product cts well as the major intermediate com- 

 pounds are made have been improved continually in terms of yield, quality, 

 and waste minimization. Currently, two U.S. plants make the primary inter- 

 mediate compounds through essentially identical processes, resulting in the 

 same yield and quality characteristics and about the same waste generation 

 and emission. 



A new, advanced plant is now being built by Du Pont in Singapore to 

 produce the key nylon intermediate, adipic acid. It will use the same process, 

 based on cyclohexane technology, as the two U.S. plants. The process has, 

 however, been improved so that there is a higher yield of product, less con- 

 sumption of energy, and considerably less waste generated (about 20 per- 

 cent less waste water alone); air emissions have also been reduced, by 97 

 to 99 percent. A material thai was formerly waste has also been turned into 

 a beneficial product for commercial sale. Greenhouse gases, now emitted 

 from the plants In the United States, will be reclaimed or destroyed, and not 

 released to the atmosphere. Overall, the Singapore plant will be less energy- 

 intensive and much more environmentally friendly than the existing plants. 



Du Pont's next-generation adipic acid plant is being planned for Europe, 

 where the company plans to use a step change in technology that will bring 

 further improvements to the product and reduce the potential environmental 

 load from the plant even more than the Singapore plant. This technology 

 will achieve considerable reductions in air and water emissions, and by- 

 products will be converted back to feedstock and recycled into the process. 

 No oxides of nitrogen or waste water will be released into the environment. 

 Commercialization of this facility is expected within the next 4 to 6 years. 

 After the new technologies have been proven in commercial operations, the 

 process and environmental improvements in t)olh the Singapore and Euro- 

 pean plants will be considered for retrofitting into the U.S. plants. 



dation is closely linked with industrialization, we must explore ways to har- 

 ness economic forces to work for environmental protection, not against it. 



GLOBAL EFFORT NEEDED 



Ultimately, ensuring that our planet will sustain the human family in per- 

 petuity will take a global effort with keen sensitivity to geographic diversity. 

 The importance of international collaboration in environmental R&D is under- 



