IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-1-349-25836-9_11.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Recycling Technologies and Engineering Challenges

In: New Generic Technologies in Developing Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Donald V. Roberts

Abstract

For an engineer, a sustainable system is one that is either in equilibrium, operating at a steady state, or one that changes slowly at a rate considered to be acceptable. This concept of sustainability is best illustrated by natural ecosystems. They function as semi-closed ‘loops’ that change slowly. For example, the hydrological cycle involves continuous evaporation from the oceans and other surface bodies of water up into the atmosphere. The vapour then moves over land where precipitation occurs as rain or snow. The water then returns back to the ocean through surface streams or groundwater, and the process is repeated over and over. The food cycle involving plants and animals represents another illustration. Plants grow and thrive in the presence of sunlight, moisture and nutrients. They are then consumed by herbivores and insects, which in turn are eaten by various classes of carnivores. The resulting waste products replenish the nutrients, which allows the process to be repeated again and again.

Suggested Citation

  • Donald V. Roberts, 1997. "Recycling Technologies and Engineering Challenges," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: M. R. Bhagavan (ed.), New Generic Technologies in Developing Countries, chapter 10, pages 214-220, Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-25836-9_11
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-25836-9_11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-25836-9_11. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.