Environmental work in industry is considered as a strategically important issue. This is mainly driven by the social concerns about environmental impacts on human health and ecological system. A number of methods for the evaluation of environmental impacts have been proposed, but their considerations have only been given to either human health or ecological health. This paper presents a model to evaluate the potential environmental impacts on both ecological and human health of a manufacturing process. Five impact groups are used as the basis for the computation of the hazard values of ecological health. On the other hand, the hazard values of human health are based on the toxicological, cancer and physical effects of waste components. The model has been developed into a computer software, and its effectiveness has been demonstrated by a case of manufacturing process.

Date Published: 9 February 2001
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 4193, Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing, (9 February 2001); doi: 10.1117/12.417267

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 4193:
Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing
Surendra M. Gupta, Editor(s)