Author(s)

C. Ceppa

Abstract

The activity of my PhD Research is based on Systems Design. This theory is about the OUTPUT-INPUT concept: the output of an industry process becomes a resource (input) for another process. The main purpose of the research is the individualization of which kinds of activities of the Piedmont Region (the main business is based on the metal and textile industries, agriculture and breeding) could be linked in order to create an integrated autopoietic system where the output, full of potentiality, is used in another process in order to eliminate wastes. The research subjects are production cycles with these final goals: 1-the achievement of sustainable management of processes wastes; 2-the creation of a sustainable open production system like the natural one, where there are no wastes; 3-the proposal of a sustainable development where local companies are linked to each other in order to obtain zero emissions. The research is focalized on the actual uses of process wastes and in particular on the different kinds of wastes, which kinds are presently reused or disposed of, in order to identify and classify the wastes typologies that will be studied. To decide the possible reuse of output such as resources, the quantity and the quality of wastes are carefully examined and subsequently classified on physics-chemical and biological properties and on the possible fields of reuse. An optimum waste use, through available or innovative technologies, will cause profits and advantages to local companies and the regional economy, new jobs and new local production. The results achieved until now are related to the agriculture and breeding sector: in particular there is evidence of the differences and the advantages (regarding the types of output, output reuses, new resources, costs and profits) between the present productive process, which has a linear structure, and the new one which suggests an open sustainable production system. Keywords: systems design, sustainable waste management, output-input, reuse of wastes, new local flows of materials, open production system.

Keywords

systems design, sustainable waste management, output-input, reuse ofwastes, new local flows of materials, open production system.