Complex Value Optimisation for Resource Recovery from Waste (C-VORR)

我们的现代工业社会产生了越来越多的废物。然而，这些废物中的许多可能含有有用的材料(可能是金属或营养物质)，或者本身可能被用作另一个过程的投入(可能作为燃料或原材料)。从废物中回收这些资源是废物管理的重要组成部分，通常涉及从工业流程、组织或社区收集废物，然后进行分类、再加工、回收或焚烧。所有这些活动都在许多不同的方面产生了好处和影响，例如：*经济：好处来自出售回收的材料，而影响是收集、处理等的成本；*我们的社会：提供再处理工作是一种好处，代价是对垃圾收集的严厉规定；*环境：防止有害物质被倾倒有助于环境，但再处理可能涉及碳排放或使用更多资源；*我们的健康：保持街道清洁可以预防疾病，但一些回收工作可能是危险的。当选择哪个资源回收系统最好时，很难权衡所有这些因素。通常，我们只是简单地将一项技术“固定”到过程的最后，主要担心它是否具有成本效益，并经常假设因为我们正在回收资源，环境影响自然是好的。但许多回收系统都有“隐藏”的影响，需要复杂的分析才能理清头绪。研究表明，在某些情况下，收集和回收塑料瓶会产生更多二氧化碳，比简单地制造新瓶子消耗更多的资源；这是一种隐藏的环境影响。事实上，我们的许多塑料垃圾被出口到远东，在那里，工人在不健康的条件下进行再加工，工资非常低；这是一种隐藏的社会和健康影响。在我们找到权衡所有这些因素的方法之前，人们将继续做出错误的决定，这些决定是由对“浪费的世袭制度”等简单化思想的信仰所驱动的。在C-VORR项目中，我们将把科学家、工程师、数学家和经济学家聚集在一起，帮助建立这种方法。与我们的行业合作伙伴和国际专家合作，我们将研究产生废物的过程；不仅是在管道的末端，而且是整个系统的上下游。我们将研究通过这些系统的材料流动，并看看随着我们调整系统，它们的“复杂价值”--它们的经济、社会、环境和健康利益与影响的平衡--如何变化。这将使我们能够确定调整--可能是产品制造方式的改变，或者是新的回收工艺，或者使用一个系统的废物作为另一个系统的投入--给我们带来最好的整体价值；不仅是在金钱方面，而且在对我们的健康、幸福和环境的影响方面也是如此。要做到这一点，我们需要将衡量流量的科学和工程方法与衡量效益和影响的方法结合起来，检查这些方法如何随时间和空间变化。我们将不得不彻底重新定义价值，使用非正统的经济思维来帮助我们。如果我们做对了这一点，那么我们可以完全改变我们从废物中回收资源的方式，而不是从一开始就谈论防止价值被浪费掉。我们将拥有一种工具，它不仅可以让我们决定哪种恢复技术--或对过程的改变--对社会和环境最有利，而且还可以识别商业机会，恢复以前隐藏的价值。它将使我们摆脱可能会产生意想不到的后果的关于回收和再处理的简单化想法，让我们所有人都更深入地了解如何最好地保护我们稀缺的资源、宝贵的环境和生活质量，不仅是我们自己，还有那些与我们相关的人；在这个全球化的世界里，每个人都是如此。

Our modern industrial society produces increasing amounts of waste. Yet many of these wastes might either contain useful materials (perhaps metals or nutrients) or could themselves be used as an input for another process (maybe as a fuel or raw material). Recovering these resources from wastes is an important part of waste management and normally involves collecting wastes from an industrial process, organisation or community and then carrying out sorting, reprocessing, recycling or incineration. All these activities have benefits and impacts in many different ways, for example: * the economy: benefits come from selling the recovered materials, while the impacts are the costs of collection, processing etc; * our society: providing reprocessing jobs is a benefit, at the cost of harsh rules on rubbish collection; * the environment: preventing harmful materials from being dumped helps the environment, but reprocessing may involve carbon emissions or use of more resources; * our health: keeping the streets clean prevents disease, but some recycling jobs may be dangerous.When choosing which resource recovery system is best, it is difficult to weigh up all these factors. Often, we simply 'bolt on' a piece of technology to the end of the process, worrying mainly whether it is cost-effective and often assuming that because we are recovering resources, the environmental impact is automatically good. But many recovery systems have 'hidden' impacts that require complex analysis to untangle. Studies have shown that in some cases, collection and recycling of plastic bottles produces more carbon dioxide and uses more resources than simply making new bottles; a hidden environmental impact. In fact, much of our plastic waste is exported to the Far East, where it is reprocessed by workers in unhealthy conditions paid very poor wages; a hidden social and health impact. Until we have a method for weighing up all these factors, poor decisions driven by faith in simplistic ideas such as 'the waste heirarchy' will continue to be made. In the C-VORR project, we will bring together scientists, engineers, mathematicians and economists to help build this method. Working with our industry partners and international experts, we will look at processes that produce waste; not just at the 'end of the pipe' , but upstream and downstream throughout the whole system. We will examine the flows of materials through these systems and see how their 'complex value' - the balance of their economic, social, environmental and health benefits and impacts - changes as we adjust the system. This will allow us to identify the adjustments - perhaps a change in the way a product is made, or a new recycling process, or using the waste from one system as the input to another - that give us the best value overall; not just in terms of money, but also in terms of the effect on our health, happiness and environment. To do this, we will need to combine scientific and engineering methods that measure flows with ways of measuring benefits and impacts, checking how these vary with time and space. We will have to completely redefine value, using unorthodox economic thinking to help us. If we get this right, then we can completely change the way that we look at recovering resource from waste, and instead talk about preventing value from being dissipated into waste in the first place. We will have a tool that will not only let us decide which recovery technology - or change to the process - is best for society and the environment, but that can also identify business opportunities to recover previous hidden value. It will allow us to move away from simplistic ideas about recycling and reprocessing that may have unintended consequences, and give us all a more sophisticated understanding of how to best preserve our scarce resources, our precious environment and the quality of not just our lives but those connected to us; in this globalised world, that's everyone.