Tools made man. A sharp object splintered from a stone evolved over thousands of generations into a computer program which is, in many respects, superior to its creator man. Tools are not only simple things but machines, factories, entire industrial sectors and networks: megamachines.

Food, wood and energy are imperative for human beings. The industries that produce and process them are the basis for everything else. Only water and air are more indispensable.

Agriculture, forestry and energy production are megamachines, gigantic complex networks in which tools and building materials, fuels and fertilizers, people and information flow in addition to organic material. Assisting and interacting with them is another gigantic machine processing ores and metals, plastics and rocks. It also uses energy and has its own interconnections. It also moves goods, people and information. This machine should also be characterised by a circular movement.

Production up to now has been unidirectional, transporting materials from one edge to another: from a mine via production and consumption to a rubbish dump, a black hole from where there is no return. But materials then disappear from use which is why recycling is necessary to keep them in circulation. This will happen in the new megamachine I am proposing. There will be no edges, and a product is just one stage in the circulation of materials, the butterfly stage. A pumping movement occurs between production and consumption; discarded goods are dismantled and the parts used as raw material for new ones.

Production is a combination of several material and energy streams. It should consist of closed loops like those oxygen, water and carbon have formed for billions of years in nature. Creating these loops is the most important goal of technology in the coming decades, and it will require a massive and intricate machinery.

Products and machinery, combinations of machines in factories, and factory complexes, megamachines, have always required skilled operators. An old-fashioned typewriter is like an axe, it contains no hidden spirit that can make independent decisions more wisely and quicker than its user. Without a typist, a typewriter cannot do anything.

Future megamachines will not function properly unless they themselves can make quick decisions. Their main skill is knowing what to do. Many future systems will be far more advanced in just what they can do. Products and systems are smart. Their other parts, their muscles and senses, may be old-fashioned. Skill production is often called knowledge production. Skill and recycling are the keywords of the new production system.

THE PRODUCTION OF GOODS

By the end of May all types of boats are moored to the piers in Piperviken harbour in Oslo. On this particular Saturday evening in the year 2035, Torben Nansen is looking at them with his son  as he always does on Saturdays. They are joined, at Radhus Square, by a former school friend whom Torben has not seen for years, who immediately starts lecturing then on his work and social status. He tells them how he has been appointed head of the Assembly Section in the Building Department of the European Statistics Office, and is now weighed down by an inhuman workload. He is supposed to analyse basic systems mistakes in recycling statistics and propose models for their correction. He has become bald prematurely and developed a slight speech impediment. Torben listens politely to his outburst.

The jobs one gets, thinks Torben, who is an artist. The friend explains that he is drawing up an inventory of wooden houses in Europe. It appears that in previous reports there were serious systems faults. The statistics were prepared from data supplied by individuals, and it is from these that the errors arose. Now he has heard from a Finn, Mr Nurmi, that all their wooden house statistics contain a systems error. Torben would dearly like to be rid of him, but he just babbles on, wagging his finger like a schoolmaster, and saying that people sending in incorrect reports should be punishable by law.

Recycling strategies

In the future recycling will not be considered a separate stage, as a type or part of production. Minerals and gravel will be no longer be extracted to make an endless stream of products, but all materials taken for man’s use will be recovered and reused, systematically and intelligently. In future recycling equals production.

Let us begin with the basic aims of research and planning. Products, machines, processes and interconnections will be planned on the basis of new objectives. Products will not be limited to lifespan analyses or recycling to energy and material balance sheets. Lifespan analyses would be replaced by recycling analyses, later refined into strategies, when not only observations but also plans are made. Neither would planning just chart the cradle to the grave process of a product, but the chain of events in its renewal, cycle by cycle, the slow advance of entropy, including the amount of energy used for each cycle. A product’s full lifespan is but one link in the chain. Material changes its state but is not destroyed, so a product can be renewed completely or part by part. Future product descriptions will contain a dismantling and renewing plan, as well as a lifespan and replacement schedule for each part.

Whatever the product is  an opera house, a bicycle, a milk carton or a litre of drinking water  it has some general characteristics. By observing them we can, theoretically, see whether it is necessary or even possible to recycle it.

A product often belongs to a wider category. For example, the first of the above mentioned items is a building, the second a vehicle, the third a package and the last a raw material, but each in its own class is unique, irreplaceable and necessary. It is not worthwhile considering the principles of recycling products as such, but by type and group. In order to make progress here we must first distinguish those aspects which are common and must never be forgotten.

The volume of the mass in the product group and its recycled form is one obvious and important aspect to be considered. It is not worth thinking about recycling objects that contain negligible amounts of materials. Later on, when technology has advanced, then all products can be recycled so this will be as natural as safety requirements are now.

Products and materials for recycling have to be separated into industrial streams according to the size of their mass (Figure 86). The most common and necessary substance we use is water and far behind it come food, paper, machines, buildings and other categories. The recycling of water is a special subject which will be dealt with in connection with cities.

In addition to quantity, the scarcity, value and indispensability of materials in a product group must be taken into account. Gold has always been recycled, and many other metals have already risen (or soon will) into the same class. All rare materials should be picked out with tweezers from discarded products, because they will run out in future and their price will rise. The scarcity of a material in nature places a major responsibility on users in respect to the needs of future generations.

Figure 86. The production and consumption of different materials in Europe

Closely related to scarcity is the harmfulness of a material when released into nature. If at the outset of the production process an attempt is made to conserve resources for the future, then at the end of it care must be taken to ensure that a product or process does not harm the environment. The more harmful the material, the more carefully it must be controlled during its lifespan. The special treatment of hazardous waste is a common example of this, an extreme example being plutonium from nuclear plants. Waste management is actually only one stage in recycling.

The final principle concerns the structure of the product and the recycling process. Though mass, scarcity and harmfulness determine the theoretical necessity for recycling, in practice some products and processes are much more suitable for recycling than others. It is simple and profitable to recycle a product which is easy to dismantle, consists of few materials, and is produced in large series. So in planning, the complete cycle should be studied, because planning is fundamentally affected by the above mentioned aspects.

Recycling is a two-stage process. In the first stage, waste is divided into product groups, and in the second into material groups (Figure 87). In the following I shall discuss those product groups where the masses are significant and for which suitable recycling strategies must be drawn up. The average lifespan of the different groups varies decisively.

Figure 87. Basic structure of recycled production

Figure 87. Basic structure of recycled production

Packages

Though packages are dealt with here, the same concerns all products whose recycling is crude and simple. The characteristics of this first basic recycling model are that the products have a large total mass, are made from cheap materials, and that they are conveyed to the recycling process as such without first being dismantled.

Duales System Deutschland is the first in the world to initiate a recycling process for packing materials covering the whole country. This does not mean picking up sweet papers from the roadside, but an operation that collects and reuses millions of tons of glass, paper, aluminium, tin and plastics in Germany (Figure 88). This model has already gained adherents in several other European countries, including France, Belgium and Austria. Packagings are separated into three groups: paper, glass, and miscellaneous which includes aluminium as well as plastics.

Figure 88. Duales System Deutschland collection bins

The collection, sorting and recycling of paper and glass are routine tasks. On the other hand, recycling light and “miscellaneous” packagings raises several problems. Collection is successful because the consumer does not have to separate the different materials. The project’s initiators were surprised at the enormous enthusiasm of Germans for collection and recycling. At present the packagings are manually sorted at collection depots, but automatising the process is only a question of time, quantities and technology. Another problem concerns the difficulty of recycling plastics, so this must be dealt with separately.

The whole of Europe’s annual packaging waste is in the region of 50 million tonnes. It exceeds the combined mass of cars and household appliances produced, ie, the main mass of consumer durables acquired by people. It is one tenth of all the food we eat and only negligible when compared to the amount of water consumed.

This annual mass of 50 million tons is a mountain whose recycling is still primitive in its technology and principles, but it nevertheless opens a way to a new type of production. Its collection and reuse is important because packages have the shortest life and the lowest value. If packages were not recycled, their need in the first place could scarcely be justified. Ultimately, we will perhaps dispense with them altogether, but because we are now forced to recycle them we should give fundamental consideration to their need and character. Let us look for a moment at the reason for packaging.

In olden times in Europe you bought milk in your own milk can, something which is still done in the developing countries. The formal reasons for packaging are hygiene and convenience, but in truth it is advertising. The package sells the article and the manufacturer. The same disease has spread to clothes, shoes, everything. How strange a bottle of beer would look like without its label! How odd a supermarket shelf would look like without its colour! Such mundane images bring to mind the old Soviet Union and poor quality, and our revulsion for socialism makes us admire advertisements, bad taste and gaudy colours. In addition to panegyrics packages often convey untruths about the product’s size and quality.

What about packaging technology? This business has an annual turnover of about a hundred billion ecu in Europe. Could such a colossal business develop its product and production technology in line with the standards required by a modern world?

Packages must be either recycled, composted or burnt. For this to succeed they must all be labelled so you can see at a glance what has to be done. This means that there should only be a limited number of packaging materials. Furthermore, shops must accept returns by consumers and send them on for recycling. That is how the German system works. Since business is international so the rules have to be international with package labelling standardised throughout the entire continent.

Recyclable packages could be of glass, in which case they can reused as such or crushed to provide raw material for making such things as insulating glass wool. They could be compostable, biodegradable plastics. Or reusable plastics in which case their future is guaranteed. Metals are also suitable for recycling. But the consumer must know what material the packaging is made from. Paper and cardboard cannot be infinitely recycled, which is why it is important to know how often they have been recycled so you know when to burn it. Burning could be a more natural way of disposal than composting.

The packaging industry should develop continental norms to control material flows and optimise the use of energy and materials. Nonrenewable resources should be used sparingly and dump waste eliminated. Metals and glass can be recycled endlessly. Plastic and paper can be recycled for a limited period and then used to create energy, which becomes carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, from where the carbon eventually returns as plant nutrient. Composite materials should be used with discretion because they are difficult to reuse.

There are many recyclable utility goods, whose mass is not in the same class as the above groups, and for which special recycling strategies should be developed. A good example is textiles, as they are no good for reuse or composting, and have no useful intermediate function before being burned. Burning may be the best solution for them at the moment. Genetic technology will probably soon discover a practical way of making clothes compostable. Microbes will then consume the waste textiles and convert them into soil. For instance, textiles made from peat can already be composted. There are quite a few products like textiles that cannot be recycled, such as suitcases, bags and backpacks. I shall not deal with their fate here.

A factor common to all the above products is that they are not taken apart before being returned. They are just tipped into a mill as their mass is large and of little value.

Machines and equipment

Packages are a typical example of one ordinary product group, machines and equipment are another. These differ in that they may contain some very valuable materials, are assembled from many different parts which often belong to different material groups, and are worth saving as such. The useful life of the parts varies, so a product can be renewed either completely or bit by bit. These products often have moving parts. The most common ones discussed here are household machines and appliances (Figure 89). A comprehensive model must be thought up for recycling machines and equipment, and this requires real innovation. Even now it is not enough to reconstitute material into its previously usable form, the product must be taken apart and the pieces renewed individually and in a different way. Recycling is a new field of mechanical engineering which can no longer be neglected and must function as efficiently as information technology today.

Figure 89. Purchases of cars and household appliances in Europe, 1992

(Source: Euromonitor: Consumer Europe, 1993)

The production cycle must be reorganised so that assembly is complemented by returning, the reverse process in which finished products or parts are taken apart. Because the durability of dismantled parts varies, they must be tested and one of the following four options chosen (Figure 87). These are: a) reusing as such (Part 3), b) repairing and reusing or c) further dismantling and testing the small parts (Part 1), and d) crushing into raw material (Part 2). Products must be so designed that the last option is used as seldom as possible. If, however, this is decided upon during testing and dismantling, it is usually because the product consists of either metal, polymer or stone, each of which has its own recycling strategy.

The basic solutions for recycling machines and appliances must be made at the design stage. Thus not only is a product being designed, but also the recycling of material and the use of energy. It is essential to separate metals, mineral aggregates and polymers from each other because they are treated in different ways. Each group of material should be treated according to its own special characteristics.

When an article is designed to be recycled each part will have an ideal lifespan, which should preferably be a multiple or submultiple of that of the product itself. For example, the lifespan of a tyre could be one quarter and the chassis double that of the anticipated lifespan of the car itself. A car’s product description states when the parts should be renewed, in other words the recommended dates for the return of the car and its various parts. The price should also include a deposit to be refunded when the car is returned. In reality it is only long leased, but the time would be calculated part by part in kilometres driven rather than years. How often parts are exchanged depends on the lifespan of the car itself. Here, too, a small deposit could be refunded when the parts are returned. Thus a car would consist of separate parts each with its own replacement timetable.

The plan, however, includes many other things related to recycling. Robots should be able to dismantle cars easily. The dismantled parts should not be made of composite materials, alloys, at least not when they are intended to be returned for recycling. Such materials would be recycled chemically, which is slightly more complicated than just melting and recombining them. To compensate for this difficulty, composite materials should have a long life and excellent technical characteristics. When an old car is broken up only those parts which cannot be reused would be converted into raw material. Some parts would be made to last longer than several cars. This stage of the process, however, must include adequate testing to show that an old part is sound enough for use in a new car.

In June 1994 the EU Commission launched a three-year project to establish an automated plant for dismantling cars. The goal is to devise a system that automatically recognises the model of car lifted on to the dismantling platform, adjusts the robot accordingly, checks the dimensions (which may have changed over the ten or twenty years it has been driven), removes the windscreen, tyres and battery, drains all liquids, and then passes the stripped car forward. The first experimental model is the Volvo 300.

This is only the first stage in the process. The next stage is to learn how to strip plastic and other non-metal parts (about 20% of the weight), separate aluminium (about 5% of the weight) from the different types of steel (about 75% of the weight), and otherwise dismantle the car to facilitate the further processing of its metals. At the BMW dismantling plant, as well as everywhere else, dismantling is still done manually.

Naturally, all the above useful operations will be unnecessary once petrol-driven cars are replaced within the next generation by automated electrically-powered cybercabs. Nevertheless, this process has to be encouraged because it will create a new industry capable not only of dismantling cars and reusing their parts, but also for recycling refrigerators, televisions, computers, telephones and a host of other products. The dismantling industry, which is just as important as the assembling industry, is a hundred years behind the times.

All those parts which cannot be reused would be individually recycled, with distinct processes for metals, mineral aggregates and polymers. I shall deal with these later on. Industrial chemical methods for recycling composite materials must be developed in order to separate the different materials for reuse. We cannot afford not to use and recycle valuable materials just because it is difficult.

Even though I propose replacing the car with a more advanced vehicle, I have used it as an example because it is familiar to everyone and simple to recycle. Many car manufacturers have already experimented with primitive recycling technologies. The model that is found suitable for cars can also be used for domestic appliances, such as vacuum cleaners, telephones and televisions. Even more urgent is the recycling of surplus and outdated industrial and agricultural machinery. In future the recycling of such machinery, down to the last nut and bolt, must become a routine practice.

Packages are an example of products that are not broken down before recycling. Machinery and equipment, on the other hand, are products which have first to be dismantled and then recycled part by part. There are many other such products, furniture, for example.

Buildings

Buildings are quite different from machines and equipment. Their average lifespan is about 200 years, whereas for machines it’s a maximum of about twenty years. Buildings have a more intrinsic and sentimental value than machines, whose value is more clearly indirect. Buildings are more like works of art than machines. The materials used in them are more durable, they do not have moving parts that wear out, and they are far from being disposable or recyclable in character. In fact, they are far more likely to be restored than recycled.

While machines and equipment consist mainly of metals and plastics, buildings are from timber, bricks, concrete, glass and sometimes even steel. It is questionable whether recycling is the right approach in building production. It may be more intelligent to emphasise a building’s long life, which is, of course, one form of saving, though in some respects it is also the antithesis of recycling. Both have the same goal, they are just different aspects of conservation and economy. In one sense they are opposites because a recyclable product has a set lifespan and the ultimate purpose is to save the material, not the product. So the life of a long-lasting product should not be defined. The Egyptian pyramids are long-lasting products, likewise the throne found in Tutankhamun’s tomb which, in function and comfort, is comparable to any Art Deco object. Like the pyramids, our present built environment could also be timeless. Nevertheless, we should not completely exclude the possibility of recycling buildings, but then decision on how to do this would have be made at the design stage.

When a recycled building is constructed, its parts must be long-lasting, easily removed and functionally versatile. Architecturally, the elements would not look like Lego blocks, but they can, however, be dismantled and reassembled over and over again. Buildings intended as temporary should be designed in this way, likewise those whose function could change before the building is technically aged. All this applies equally to the design of furniture.

Although I am primarily concerned with buildings, this group also includes many other products that are not recycled, but retained and restored. They have no moving or wearing parts, and often a highly sentimental value.

By nature art objects are not normally recyclable or temporary. After saying this, however, I suddenly remembered the environmental installations by Christo which are only intended to be temporary. When somebody who is not an artist tries to define and classify art, artists often point out that the definition is wrong and the classification restrictive. So the above is only a hesitant opinion and far from the ultimate truth. However, books must not be recycled, they must be preserved for ever. On this point I am adamant and unequivocal.

Figure 90. The word “recycling” has entered many European languages

Recycling and transportation

The new plan will radically change the transportation of goods. Nowadays this is normally considered a one-way traffic; from mine to factory, factory to shop, shop to consumer, and consumer to rubbish dump. By dismantling parts there will be a two-way flow, and hopefully as much is returned as is used in production. The most significant difference is the last link: the basic parts are not returned to the mines but reprocessed, so metal scrap, for instance, can be converted into new raw materials through analysis and blending. Recycling is intimately tied up with the transportation of goods, so the one cannot be planned without the other. The transportation of goods will be discussed later on.

RECYCLING METALS

On the evening of May 26th, in a restaurant at the end of Brighton’s long West Pier where it points south towards Continental Europe, Paul Llewelly, a Welsh businessman, is bellowing into his display screen. This large, flat folding screen, propped up next to his plate, shows the frightened face of his Latvian business colleague.

In the afternoon Paul had ordered 35 tonnes of scrap metal from Latvia for his recycling plant in Hamburg. The average nickel content had been stated as 13 per cent, but analysis showed this to be wrong. Paul wants the price to be radically reduced, as the metal was intended as raw material for making robot cultivators. The Latvian points out that as the lead content is higher than stated, this should compensate for the nickel deficiency.

Paul doesn’t haggle as he’s an expert on metals. He knows what lead, steel and nickel cost and how their prices will soon change. The Latvian’s face drops as Paul folds the screen, pops the communicator into his pocket, and starts on his juicy steak.

The nature of metals

We all know what metal is like. It is hard and tenacious, slippery to touch, shiny and clangs when struck. If you hit a window with it, the glass will break, and if you bang the floor with it, you’ll make a dent. But what do we really know?

The lead we cast into cold water on New Year’s Eve is a metal. It melts easily when heated over a gas flame. Car batteries contain lead, which is why they are heavy. They also contain other metals. A knife blade is steel, a window frame is aluminium, a car bumper is chromium plated, and a ring is gold. But what are titanium, iridium and rubidium?

Most of the 103 known elements are metals, or at least classified as metals by some if not by all. In the periodic chart they are in a particular place at the beginning of each period. The periods are defined on the basis of the number of electrons orbiting the atomic nucleus. The electrons are located on spherical shells surrounding the core, each electron captured on its shell orbits perpetually around the nucleus. But they sometimes escape. If the outermost shell has only a few electrons they are not held very tightly. Metals are just like that. Their main characteristics at the particle level are a small number of electrons on the outermost shell with loose connections to the nucleus. That is why some of the electrons move freely without specifically belonging to the sphere of control of any nucleus. So metals are full of life even if they look solid. That, by the way, is why they conduct electricity and heat so well.

Metal atoms are arranged in a systematic geometrical lattice structure, cubic or hexagonal in shape, in which the dimensions are microscopic. This organisation is called crystalline structure. This disappears in molten metal, it becomes an amorphous, indefinite shape. When metal solidifies again, crystals start forming in several places simultaneously. These places do not depend on each other, nor on the direction of the crystals. The process resembles the birth of a town plan on a small scale. Two rectangular brick buildings are being erected on a plot, but when they meet they do not join smoothly but on an uneven, stepped connected surface. This happens to metals too when they crystallise. Grains are formed in the substance and these areas have a regular crystalline structure. This shows up in a microscope, because the dark boundary surfaces which solidify last, separate them from each other. Geometrical forms still show in the grains, but the regular system of lattices has disappeared. Impurities concentrate at the outer surfaces of the granules. When, for instance, melted steel solidifies again, copper stays on the outer surfaces, which are the weak points in the material.

The internal structure, the crystallinity and granulation of metals is important in one fundamental respect. Metals are usually isomorphic, their properties are not dependent on direction, as in the case of fibrous or other materials with a specific direction. Their character does not change radically when melted or resolidified. This makes their reuse easier.

Free electrons also absorb and emit light. Thus the external characteristics of metals are formed: opaqueness and a well-known shine. This is only valid in those areas of the wavelength of light which the human eye can see. Infrared light passes through silicon, though other light wavelengths do not.

In his inventory of world resources, Buckminster Fuller forecasted the availability of certain metals as follows: lead would last for another 19 years, zinc 23 years and copper 29 years (World Design Science Decade). This was made in 1963 so the supplies of copper, zinc and tin in the world should already be exhausted. Though this is not so, we must not regard his estimates as nonsense. In later and more accurate calculations it is still these metals which are in short supply: the forecast for lead is 22 years, zinc 21 years, and copper 41 years (World Resources 1990-1991, 1990).

Everybody knows that availability of metals is dwindling, which is why their recycling is so vitally important.

Metal alloys

Metals have been dealt with above only as elements. Their use as such is rare, because alloys have been made for thousands of years. The characteristics of alloys are, in certain respects, even better than the individual metals themselves. There are, for example, about 20 000 commercial qualities of steel.

All the above features of metals are significant when considering recycling these common and necessary materials. It is important that they can be melted, solidified and worked endlessly, without their characteristics deteriorating. This is the most important aspect of recycled material, because in melting metal scrap and mixing different molten metals, it is possible to reach the same required result from very different points of departure. This is not the case with all metals. The melting point of some metals is so high that melting and resolidifying them is not normally worthwhile. One of these is wolfram whose melting point is 3410C. So wolfram is recycled by grinding into powder, compressing into a cake and sintering it electrically. The ordinary lining materials of melting furnaces, such as aluminium silicates, melt at much lower temperatures than wolfram, but at much higher temperatures than steel. Except for metals like wolfram, recycling is done by melting and resolidifying.

Here is an everyday example to illustrate the reuse of alloys. Let us assume that we want to make a litre of TGV cocktail, which contains tequila, gin and vodka, one third of each. However, our raw ingredients are three different mixtures: the first contains one part of gin to three parts of vodka, the second one part of tequila to two parts of gin, and the third one part of tequila to one part of vodka. To achieve the desired cocktail we have to these three mixtures in the following way: the first 4/21 of a litre, the second 9/21 and the third 8/21. Here’s hoping that the alcohol consumption of readers who want to prove this theory will not rise excessively.

The above TGV principle is followed when combining metals for recycling. The amount of different elements in each scrap batch is roughly estimated by samples, and by combining batches in suitable amounts the desired result will be obtained. Finally pure elements are used for adjustment. Fine adjustment is done while the metal is still molten, since modern technology allows a sample to be analysed in 2-4 minutes.

In this way different steels, aluminiums, copper, nickel and tin alloys are formed. Often silicon, carbon and phosphorus are added to the alloys to regulate and improve their characteristics.

Recycling systems

Improving recycling means the extensive and thorough renewal of the entire system. Without a supporting organisation, no individual plant can function, so it is best to deal with the system first.

A transcontinental bookkeeping system that daily monitors metal balance sheets and flows has to be introduced. This kind of on-line bookkeeping requires an equally extensive and efficient network for the electronic transfer and storage of information. It is important to keep continuous statistics of scrap metal and all finished products in use containing metals. Data on the number of televisions in Europe is not so important as the amount of germanium and aluminium they contain.

In this way a map covering the continent would be drawn up, which shows the location and metal content of ore resources still in the ground, the different metals contained in products in use and their anticipated scrapping date, the quantity and location of scrap not yet used, and the amount of metals in semi-finished goods, and products in warehouses and shops. Thus an on-line metal inventory can be drawn up once it becomes obligatory to inform the central database of all metal-containing consignments.

The current situation can be estimated on the basis of this register, and the future need for raw materials and plans for their supply can be forecast on a sustainable basis. Thus a realistic picture is formed of entropy, disappearance, wear, and of the amount of materials removed from the continent, element by element. This helps to estimate future opportunities and demands on untouched natural resources (Figure 91). A natural extension of this register is a transeuropean raw material exchange on which all are free to inform their interest in buying and selling.

Figure 91. Annual metal production in Europe

(Source: Metallstatistik 1993)

Recycling today

In order to plan the recycling of metals in the future, we must first analyse modern systems. We will best understand the various processes if we study the operation of an existing recycling plant and compare it to the ideal planned system.

1. Scrap collection

Collecting scrap metal from industry, agriculture and construction sites is not the heart of the problem, as we are dealing with large quantities, a controlled process and a fairly small group of consumers. The problem is focussed on the materials returned by private consumers. They would be encouraged to return products because of a deposit in the price, returnable when a car, refrigerator or toothbrush is returned to the seller. Sellers today neither charge a deposit nor refund one, but scrap dealers do pay something.

Before an improved system can be implemented, between 1000-2000 scrap metal handling plants would have to be built in suitable places in Europe, to which the shops send the returned goods. In highly populated areas one plant could serve a million people, in sparsely populated areas plants would serve a smaller number. In these plants scrap would be preprocessed. For instance a car would be dismantled into sensible parts mechanically, metal and other materials separated, and the metal pressed into bales. Nowadays bales are sent to a crushing plant (Figure 92).

The above method can be vastly improved. First of all, only those parts of old computers, television sets or bicycles would go for scrap which have been examined and found unsuitable for new products. Suitable materials would be reused as such for producing semi-finished products. After that, incoming batches would be analysed in all recycling plants, and a scrap exchange would operate throughout the continent in real time. Scrap buyers could scroll through all the quantities and qualities on offer, on-line. Scrap would no longer be ordered without knowing its composition. Only carefully selected alloys would be sent to a crushing plant  collected from over a large area  and which are known to be suitable for the plant. The process continues as follows.

Figure 92. Material at a crushing plant

2. Scrap analysis

Scrap batches at best contain several tonnes of fairly homogeneous material, for instance aluminium window frames whose composition can be assumed to be uniform. When scrap is taken to a crushing plant, a sample would be taken for chemical analysis. This eliminates unnecessary steps in further processing. There are also other means to check the composition, for instance by atomic absorption spectrophotometer, which must be familiar to every enlightened reader.

This sort of analysis would be unnecessary in most cases in the future, because every product would contain a description of its components. At the latest, the content of a batch would be known by the time it reaches the gates of the plant. The continental databank would monitor metal flows.

Figure 93. Material after rough crushing

3. Rough crushing of scrap metal

Today, scrap metal is crushed mechanically before separating and melting, because smaller pieces are easier to handle on machines. At this work stage less energy is used than in melting, which requires a lot of thermal energy. There are many different types of crushers, whose names illustrate their method of operation: hammer mill, ring crusher, granulator, impact crusher. They break up car-body bales, aeroplane motors, window frames and tank tracks into pieces under 100 mm thick, which are then divided into fractions by different methods (Figure 93). Crushing is optimised so that the pieces are neither too small nor too big, otherwise the mechanised process suffers.

In future crushing will become partly unnecessary. The exact composition and weight of metal in cars, refrigerators and ball point pens would be known in advance. Parts would be collected into large warehouses according to their material content, analysed and separated into suitable batches for melting. Crushing plants maintain an on-line bookkeeping of materials in store, and crushing is only necessary to simplify handling. A continental-wide exchange database is maintained of each batch of scrap metal and, because of cheap transportation, it is sent to be melted where it is needed at the time.

Figure 94. Separated material

4. Separating crushed material

Nowadays, crushed pieces of metal are separated on the basis of their physical properties. Magnetism, by which steel is picked out from other metals, is crucial. Aluminium is magnetised temporarily by an electrical eddy-current, so that it can be separated from plastic and gravel, which easily get mixed with scrap. Other metals are separated, for instance, on the basis of their specific gravity, melting point and colour, although, for example, aluminium and magnesium are lighter. In separating by colour, a row of cameras or x-ray units can be used, which in a tick pick out or blow the selected bits to the right places (Figure 94).

This stage will also be unnecessary in handling new products. Their composition would be worked out at the design stage and the market database informed. Because old, unanalysed parts will be in use for decades to come, the separating methods of crushed materials must remain side by side with the new system. The scrap metal exchange already works well.

Figure 95. Ingots

When an aluminium producer in Brussels needs 6000 kilos of raw material with specific characteristics, he would compare prices in order to make his decision, whether it is worth ordering a) 2.5 tonnes of one mixture from Berlin and 3.5 tonnes of another from Gothenburg, or b) combine 5 tonnes from his own store with 0.5 tonnes from Lausanne and 0.5 tonnes from Lisbon. In his calculations he would use the well-known TGV method. Materials would move automatically, quickly and 24 hours a day.

5. Melting separated material

Metals are separated roughly into different batches today. They are melted and combined into new materials using the TGV method. Molten material is analysed and other required element or batches added before it solidifies. A substance which is not wanted can be separated out. Separating all materials is not so simple. For instance iron can be separated from copper by oxidising it into slag, but the reverse process is not successful. If it is wished to separate copper from a steel batch containing mainly iron in the melting process, the iron mass would have to be oxidised into useless slag before the copper can be recovered and the iron oxide reduced again in to iron. This is not worth doing if the amount of copper is small. It is often best to add other substances to reduce its relative amount, in other words, to dilute the excessive amount of undesirable substance in the mixture. The evaporation point of some metals, such as zinc, is low and there is no problem in removing it. Zinc evaporates from molten steel and the zinc gas is then distilled. It no longer remains in the final mixture.

A molten alloy would also be analysed in future before it is cooled, then a fairly correct result would be reached without fine adjustment, because of the precise analyses already performed. After fine adjustment, the molten material is poured into ingots and sent on to be made into useful products. The cycle is closed (Figure 95).

The key factors in the future recycling of metals are the on-line register of raw materials, the centralised data system, electronic exchange and the new-style transportation network. I shall discuss the latter in detail later on. The recycling of metals is characterised by melting and mixing different lots in different proportions in order to achieve the desired result. This is possible because the particle structure of the materials permits it without altering their basic characteristics.

Recycling polymers and mineral aggregates is very different, and will be dealt with separately.

RECYCLING PLASTICS

One evening in late May, 2035, the Danish industrial designer Hans Christian Kierkegaard is sitting on his roof terrace in Birkerød, smoking his pipe and designing a screw. The screw is to fix the polymer bubble roof in a cycbercab to the back of the aluminium chassis.

The assignment includes a lot of requirements, and the design time is three months. A difficult task. Some 300 million screws will be manufactured each year. The project is part of the continent-wide eighth upgrade of the cybercabs. In addition robots have to be selected for the factory and their design renewed. The screw must have an installation capability of 0.2 seconds without breaking and the same removal capability. It has to fulfil high strength, elasticity and hardness requirements, absolute limiting values of heat variations have been set, and it must withstand long exposure to sun, frost and moisture. It can consist of only two clearly specified materials, which can be easily and quickly taken apart by standard robots. Both materials must be suitable for recycling. A brilliant solution, a real bull’s eye, would be to find a single material suitable for the screw, but the different loads on the head and thread and other requirements seem to be an insurmountable problem. In addition the head of the screw must be stylish and easily recognisable by a robot’s electronic eye.

The screw factory is small-scale, automated and underground. Its reception end sorts and tests materials, which may be no more than two. The factory works the materials into two components of the screw as a finished product, packs them according to electronic orders, seals them in capsules and shoots them off in vacuum tubes across the continent. Half the time the factory runs in reverse, receiving used screws, testing the whole screw first and then its parts, sorts and marks them for reuse, and dispatches the useless material for recycling. One of the materials could possibly be recycled in the factory itself. The matter is still undecided, and Hans Christian is supposed to find an intelligent answer to this problem too.

Polymers

There are a large number of polymers and they all resemble each other. They are composed of chainlike molecules which are joined by covalent bonds. These bonds join two atoms by two common electrons. Each has relinquished its own single electron to orbit both cores. The parts of a polymer, the single bonds of long chains, are called monomers. The name polymer comes from the Greek: polys, many, meros, part, literally many parts. There are innumerable polymers in nature: cellulose, natural rubber, leather, proteins and vegetable fibres are all polymers. According to the broader classification, polymers always contain either carbon or silicon, and according to the stricter classification, carbon.

Some very common substances in nature, which I have encountered in the wood processing and paper industries, are often called biopolymers. A separate group is formed by inorganic, long-chained silicon-containing polymers, such as silicones. Plastics are the main subject of this chapter. Their main components are synthetic polymers containing carbon. The main focus is on recycling plastics, first examining the means of handling large masses of material. Out of hundreds of different types of plastics only four will be considered, the so-called main plastics which, however, account for over 80 per cent of all those in use (Figure 96). There are more of them today than any metal, with the exception of steel, and their use is increasing at an accelerating speed.

Figure 96. Production of leading plastics in Europe

(Source: Industrial Statistics Yearbook, 1991)

The four basic plastics considered are polyethylene, polypropene, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride. Polyester has been omitted on purpose because the mass traded is considerably less than the others. These four examined here, whose natures are “multi-ethylenes”, “multi-propenes”, etc, have much in common. By considering their recycling we will get a good idea of the problems of recycling plastics as a whole. All four are based on very long monomer chains. The chains wriggle between each other in the material like pieces of spaghetti on a plate. The joined molecules have two carbon atoms that are bonded to each other. The basic chains’ branches have hydrogen atoms and some other molecules, whose differences distinguish plastics from each other (Figure 97). All these four plastics are classified as thermoplastic, whose reconstituting is possible in principle.

Figure 97. The molecular structure of some of the main plastics

The main plastics polyethylene, polystyrene, polypropene are similar in their basic structure. Every other carbon atom is connected to two hydrogen atoms, every other carbon atom to one hydrogen atom and a certain compound of carbon and hydrogen.

Each of the main plastics can also be bridged, which means that the molecules are no longer macaroni-like but ladder-like, joined together by rungs. This change produces a physical stiffness in the material and problems in production, because when the material is melted its structure alters and never returns. After bridging the material is unsuitable for recycling, so bridging must be avoided. Bridged plastics are called resins.

Problems

Recycling polymers is much more difficult than metals, the basic problem is purity. This means that impurity is a direct hindrance: in the remelting process dirt may cause the plastic to bridge and stiffen, and so become unsuitable. This is why plastic has to be cleaned carefully before recycling. So the first stage of recycling is cutting the material into pieces, washing and drying. This stage is very different to recycling metals, where various impurities vapourise during heating as a side product in the process.

Washing is possible, however. A more difficult problem, however, both technically and in principle, is the composition of the finished products. Many different materials may be mixed into the plastic mass at the processing stage, for instance colour pigments, essential process admixtures, property-improving compounds, reinforcing fibres and fillers, the most common of which is talcum. Although admixtures have been added during processing, if it is a thermoplastic and is not composed of different qualities, it can be recycled and made into a mass similar to the original, as well as into new articles of exactly the same material. The recycling of plastics and metals is then very similar.

Most products are, however, combinations of many different types of plastics which mechanically or chemically bonded. The skin protecting your ordinary sausage in the fridge is a laminate of at least three different plastics. Closest to the sausage is a polyethylene film, about 0.04 mm thick, which is a steam resistant, pliable and seaming material. This inner membrane is necessary to join the top and lowest layers of the package together. This inner membrane is bonded to the top one by a glue with polyurethane base 0.01 mm thick. The top membrane is polyamide nylon 6, 0.05 mm thick. The product description is printed in colour on this outer skin. The outer skin is oxygen resistant, which is necessary to stop the sausage going off.

The skin protecting the sausage illustrates the difficulty of reusing plastics. There is no technique for separating the laminates from each other. In order to get at least a ton of this skin, it should be collected in province-size areas. This raw material would in any case be impure and unsuitable for reuse. Is it possible to solve this problem at all? Any answer is condemned as impossible, because nobody wants to start a discussion that would shake up the whole plastics industry.

The above only deals with the most natural and economical option for recycling plastics, a short cycle, where waste is not returned to its initial stage, but only half way. There are several theoretical long-cycle solutions which return plastic to the beginning, but most of them are too expensive to apply. Nevertheless, it is necessary to explain them individually.

Manufacture of plastics

In order to clarify the different possibilities for recycling plastics, it is necessary to have a general idea of how they are manufactured. There is, however, no single way, and it is impossible to describe all of them.

Figure 98. Polyethylene production process simplified

Let us examine one of the most common, the making of ethene (Figure 98). Raw oil is first distilled by heating it in a high fractionating column, when parts vapourising at different temperatures and substances of different specific gravity separate from each other. In this way, for instance, industrial petrol vapourises from the top, and used as a feed substance in the ethene plant. The petrol is then purified by heating at high pressure, when sulphur compounds separate out as sulphur hydrogen, and nitrogen compounds as ammonia. This is followed by the cracking of industrial petrol, breaking down its molecules into smaller parts separated from each other, at a temperature of about 800C. Petrol breaks up into lighter hydrocarbons, one of which is ethane. When hydrogen is removed from ethane the result is ethene, which is a gas. The gas is then piped to a plastics factory where it is polymerised into polyethylene by adding so-called initiators, substances which initiate the polymerising process, at a pressure of 2000 atmospheres. Thus molten polymer is formed, which is mixed and broken up into pellets, which become the actual raw material.

After this the plastic is worked, combined with admixtures to form a whole, dyed, reinforced, and mixed with other substances, though the only thing of interest here is that it complicates recycling. Its usefulness reduces its suitability for recycling, which is often the case in production.

Recycling models

In planning an overall solution for recycling plastics, a long-cycle option should be considered. Then mixed plastic would be accepted for refining, like crude oil, unseparated, rough, but as the first raw material in the process. Existing oil refineries are unsuitable, so the whole process, together with the relevant plants, has to be designed specifically for this purpose. The range of plastics used is also worth reconsidering, because recycling demands different solutions for the materials used.

There are usually three different recycling possibilities for plastics: physical, chemical, and burning. Each is dealt with briefly. Physical recycling means that used mixed plastic or pure clean plastic is used as such as raw material. This does not normally lead to proper recycling but to degrading, because the new product can for instance be a massive article made of mixed plastic that lacks the fine carefully planned characteristics of the original substances. This kind of recycled composite plastic can be used for waste sacks, park benches and other items with lower requirements (Figure 99).

Figure 99. A suitcase made from recycled plastics

Chemical recycling is a longer process. Two different applications have been tried. In the first, pyrolysis, mixed plastic is heated to 500-900C, with oxygen excluded from the reaction. The material does not burn, the result is gases and carbon. Some of these can be used as raw material in the initial stages of refinery in the petroleum industry. The method has, however, turned out to be difficult and expensive in practice. A trial project in Ebenhausen, Germany, had to be abandoned.

The other chemical treatment is hydrogenolysis, breaking down with hydrogen. In this method hydrogen is added to the mixed plastic at a high temperature and pressure, then nitrogen, sulphur and halogens form hydrogen compounds. The result is a raw material for the petroleum industry. The first trial plant is in operation in Bottrop, Germany.

The Bottrop plant can be regarded as successful so far. It was established in the middle of the 1970s, and its original purpose was to convert German coal into oil. Later waste oil and waste plastic was added to the raw materials, and from the beginning of 1995 the plant’s operating principle has been to make mixed plastic waste into synthetic raw oil, which can be further refined either into petroleum products or back into plastic. It can also be burned and converted into electricity. The temperature of the process is 480C and the pressure 300 atmospheres.

Duales System in Deutschland has greatly contributed to developments. The capacity of the Bottrop plant is significant, because the intention is to take 40 000 tonnes of waste plastic for reuse annually. Mixed materials and fillers are separated in the process, resulting in synthetic oil which can be used in the same ways as natural oil.

One valid question here concerns the rationality of the whole process. If oil is burnt in any case, and plastic also burns, would it not be more profitable to burn plastic as such without the complicated intermediate stage whereby plastic is first converted into oil and only then into energy. The technical experts at Bottrop plant give a straightforward answer: when hydrogenolysis is applied the combustion gases are much cleaner, and the energy achieved is three times more than by burning plastic. It appears that a satisfactory solution for recycling plastic is being found (Figure 100). The problem may turn out to be the price and availability of hydrogen.

Figure 100. Bottrop plant’s profitability diagram

As long as only 4% of raw oil is manufactured into plastic, it is not very important to use this amount twice over. However, in the future, the aim should be to decrease the use of oil to a fraction of its present level, and to use it at least twice, first as plastic and then as fuel.

A third method for recycling plastic is a kind of natural method. Plastic is either burnt or made biodegradable from the beginning. Both methods return part of the plastic first as carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, from where it returns as plant nutrient and over millions of years reverts in the biosphere into oil. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases as a result of these processes.

Diverse uses of plastics

Only a small proportion of oil is used for plastics. Oil in plastic retains its combustion value, so a more practical option for the orthodox recycling of plastic might be the following: oil would normally first be used as refined plastic, next in a cheap recycling process, and finally burnt. The useful life of the original material would then be significantly extended. The recycling of plastics and the use of oil and energy solutions are intertwined. If the direct burning of oil decreased, raw material for plastic would last for a long time in future. The negligible burning of plastic compared to the present burning of oil would only slightly increase the greenhouse effect. The manufacturing technology of degradable plastics is developing, and in a few decades the main plastics may have polymers like wood pulp, made of organic substances which decompose naturally. The problem is the intermediate stage strategy.

The sterility of plastic cannot be ignored. New plastics made of oil are sterile, but plastics made of recycled plastic are not necessarily so. This is why recycled plastics cannot be used for instance for packing foods or medicinal purposes. This limits the choices for recycling.

Biodegradable plastics

The biodegradable plastics mentioned earlier are in a class of their own and may be of great importance in the future (Figure 101). None of the previously discussed plastics are of this type. Biodegradable plastics are comparable to cellulose and lignin, the basic constituents of wood, which decompose in nature and become part of its cycle. Under ideal circumstances no permanent harm is done to nature. At best they technically resemble other plastics, they are hard and tough, and solid objects can be made from them (Figure 102).

Figure 101. Structures of biodegradable plastics

(Source: Suuronen, 1992)

Figure 102. A mug made from a biodegradable plastic

The original purpose of biodegradable plastics was medical, they were used for joining bones together or for sutures. They dissolved in time and finally turned into water and carbon dioxide. Biodegradable plastic can be made biologically, for example, amylum plastic is made from grain. The raw material used is not the oil buried under the ground, but the regenerating materials grown above it. Since the waste can then be composted, decomposing and becoming new raw material for nature, an ideal solution has more or less been reached.

The above idea has its opponents. Suspicion is focussed mainly on the fear that biodegradable plastics leave harmful, even poisonous substances in the ground, and one cannot be certain whether nature can tolerate them. The ideal would be a material with varied technical characteristics, made of renewable natural resources which would return to nature. Up to now wood answers this description but its technical characteristics are limited. The spectrum of materials can multiply in future with new substances that can be easily and naturally recycled, and which are as diversified as the plastics of today.

The basic problem of using plastics seems to be the lack of foresight and vision in energy production and in the petroleum industry. If energy were produced by other means than by burning oil, this raw material could be used for other products that would be very valuable in the long run. In many uses, plastics are superior to metal, wood or stone. It is absurd if this potential is squandered through sheer greediness, without giving a thought for future generations.

MINERAL AGGREGATES

Henry Maeterlinck lives in a Belgian village which, at the beginning of the year 2000, was converted into an eco-village as far as was possible. His house was built in the middle of the previous century, straight after world war two. The materials of the house are mainly masonry. The foundation wall is poured concrete, the walls brick, plastered on the outside, the floors reinforced concrete, and the pitched roof is tiled. Only the interior has other materials.

The house is in good condition technically, but old-fashioned functionally. The four members of the family want something more modern and more spacious, with more light, plants on a semi-heated verandah and lower energy bills. Regulations concerning demolishing old houses are a problem. Nothing can be dumped, and new and intelligent uses must be found for each bit of masonry. Reinforced concrete, cast in situ, is especially difficult to reuse. It can be sawn into regular blocks, but the work is difficult and expensive, and it is uncertain whether they have any real use. They can be used for breakwaters, dam walls, or for stabilising road embankments, but the prices paid are miserable. Blasting and crushing concrete is even more expensive. Reusing roof tiles and wall tiles is easier, but a suitable address has to be found for them too.

He eventually contacts the building materials recycling exchange in Norway, asking for suitable uses for concrete blocks and other waste materials. Sigrid Nansen appears on the display screen. Gosh!, he thinks, What a lovely lady!

Characteristics of mineral aggregates

In addition to metals and plastics the products we use also contain mineral aggregates. Buildings include a lot of them and their production is still high. They are cheap because they are common, but their mass is large and recycling will eventually be necessary (Figure 103). Clay, gravel, sand and limestone are the most common mineral aggregates exploited, and bricks and concrete in different forms are the most common products made from them (Figure 104).

Figure 103. Use of certain non-metals in Europe

(Source: Consumer Europe 1993, 1993)

Limestone is mainly calcite and dolomite, gravel and sand are quartz and feldspar, clay is aluminium oxide, iron oxide and quartz. These materials are compounds of certain common elements; they contain metals, silicon, carbon and always oxygen. They are crystalline and the products of combustion. The bonds of their atoms are so strong that they break under external forces, and do not flex like metals. The difference between them we describe as the toughness of metals and the brittleness of mineral aggregates. This is why ceramics cannot be mechanically reworked in the same way as metals and plastics. Stone material cannot be rolled.

Mineral aggregates and their technical use have advanced enormously during recent decades. They withstand stress very well at high temperatures, they are good insulators of electricity, and chemically they react poorly with other substances. They are superb in exacting technical applications because of these characteristics. For example aluminium oxide and silicon carbide are widely used technical mineral aggregates. Only those mineral aggregates used a lot are discussed here.

Figure 104: Production of certain building materials and products in Europe

(Source: Consumer Europe 1993, 1993)

Mineral aggregates cannot be melted and solidified again without altering their characteristics. The melting point of some components, such as aluminium oxide, is very high (2800C), which makes melting very difficult. A high melting point would not necessarily be an obstacle to melting and reprocessing in principle, unless the structure of the material did not change fundamentally in the process, so that the technical properties of the new solidified material were not inferior to the original.

Recycling requirements

In the built environment, the mass of mineral aggregates used is relatively large, but the raw materials cannot be regarded as limitless. That is why thorough consideration must be given to their adequacy in the centuries to come. Waste is not a major problem, as the chemical compositions of these materials are not harmful to nature. No poisonous substances seep into the groundwater or heavy metals onto agricultural land. But they do spoil the landscape and consume natural resources whose supply will become uncertain.

The lifespan of mineral aggregates begins at a mine or quarry, from where it is variously transported to a factory manufacturing building materials, then to a building site, then traditionally via a bulldozer’s scoop to a landfill. Each material has a fairly precisely defined technical durability and cycle, depending on its use, as well as a lifespan, and it is these which determine its reuse. The resistance to weather and wear of mineral aggregates is much better than metals and plastics, and, as far as we humans are concerned, limitless. For this reason their conservation strategy should and could be different from metals, plastics and wood.

Due to the properties of mineral aggregates, the recycling of products made from them, mainly buildings, is perhaps the strangest and most unfamiliar. Buildings have been regarded as more durable and long-lasting than other products, some of them are thought of as everlasting. The main mineral aggregates used for buildings are concrete and clay bricks. In Europe the production of the former is 1500 million and the latter 100 million tonnes per year. In addition a lot of energy is used in their production. The sheer quantities of materials used in building production is enormous compared with others, even when we consider that the use life of buildings is long and the stock renewed less frequently than cars, shoes and the contents of wine cellars.

In Europe there are about 50 billion tonnes of buildings, the equivalent of 10 000 Cheops’ pyramids. If those pyramids were put together, they would cover an area measuring 23 x 23 kilometres, a small dot on one of the maps of Europe in this book.

Recycling buildings

The recycling of metals is straightforward. Scrap is melted and made into new products equal to the original. Recycling plastic is difficult but necessary, and is successful at least if the technology of biodegradable plastics advances and their use increases. But stone materials cannot be melted or fed to bacteria. A special model for recycling mineral aggregates must be developed.

The obsession that buildings are everlasting has to be abandoned. Some 90 per cent of Finland’s building stock is less than 50 years old, and that of the rest of Europe is not so very much older. Probably only a small proportion of existing buildings will still be standing in a century from now, although the materials of the stone buildings would be perfectly usable. It would be sensible to consider how we could avoid continually crushing rock, excavating gravel and sand, quarrying limestone and scooping clay from the depths of the earth. If no remedy is found, after one or two hundred years we will have 10 000 Cheops’ pyramids of landfills, and will still be digging gravel, sand, limestone and so on from the ground. This is also a way to increase entropy and disorder on earth.

The best option in my opinion is the following: buildings and their parts should be roughly classified as long lasting or temporary, according to their life expectancy. Even so, the long-lasting ones are not eternal, because the most durable buildings will crumble in the course of thousands of years. And temporary buildings are not temporary because they are always used for longer than a fleeting moment, often for many decades. But to cut this short: let the building’s use be the deciding factor, so monumental buildings of merit are permanent and utility buildings temporary.

There are both lasting and changeable parts in permanent buildings. This principle presumes special technical requirements for the lasting parts of permanent buildings. They should be exceptionally durable. The design of permanent buildings should involve not only their construction, but also a plan for their maintenance. The durability of the building must be assessed, and the means by which it is guaranteed. At least 500 years should be set as a target for these buildings. Then each worn and deteriorated part would be repaired or replaced, though the building itself would stand unaltered. Those parts vulnerable to wear and weather would be distinguished from the rest at the outset.

Temporary buildings should be designed for recycling like any other product, but the characteristics of masonry materials have to be taken into account. It is difficult to alter the material itself or to remake a part, so the only option left is to use the parts as such for other building projects.

A temporary building should be easy to dismantle. So welding, cast concrete, solid brick walls, monolithic structures and joints that cannot be opened must be avoided. Buildings should be assembled so that they can be taken apart in pieces that can normally be reused. Concrete elements should replace cast concrete; the joints of monolithic structures and elements would be mechanical and easily opened. Elements would come apart like Lego blocks. This principle would prevail throughout the building, even the foundations would be removable. The whole building would be taken apart when necessary and the standard parts used in other buildings. Not a single stone would remain for us to lament the past or a single technically reusable piece orphaned to ponder its futility.

Technical details

There already are many types of prefabricated elements: for example, long span beams and long, broadish slabs with longitudinal hollow cores for lightness. They can be used for many kinds of floors, as long spans and or for making large rooms. Beams, columns and wall units are made to support these slabs and connected so that the buildings will not collapse like a pack of cards because of wind or other horizontal forces.

Jointing technology is still very backward. Elements are welded together, steel ties are cast in solid concrete, element construction imitating as far as possible the old-fashioned concrete building which cannot be dismantled. So the main advantage of element building is not recognised or utilised. The building is thought to be more durable when it can only be demolished by blasting. That is why slum areas in big cities are so often seen to be demolished not with adjustable wrenches or cranes, but by dynamite and bulldozers. They are not stronger, but their dismantling is more difficult than necessary.

Concrete is the most common of all mineral aggregates, brick comes next. All that I have said about concrete also concerns brick. Brick walls will all be assembled from factory-made elements in the future. They can be separated from each other because of easily released jointing materials, and bound

together with cables. Nuts at the end of the cables would open easily when needed. Thus a normal future building would be assembled from elements pressed together. When the building is dismantled, the compression would be released by loosening the nuts at the corners of the structure. In no time at all the whole building would be in parts, which are all standard, and a new use found for them in another building project.

Plastic, metal and timber do not occur in buildings as much as bricks and concrete. They are seldom used as load bearing structures, and dismantling and reuse can be easily solved. Surfacings, floors and wall tiling can all be from mineral aggregates recycled in the same way as any other. All wearing surfaces must be designed to be removable. One consoling comment in conclusion: it is easier to design a building to be recycled than a car, because a building stands in one place, which means one conditional requirement less.

Effects on architecture

The building trade needs new metanorms to form a basis for regulating detailed technical norms. Detailed norms would then be altered according to the metanorms. All these oblige the designer to take account of not only the completed building or town plan, but the project over its whole use life. The new norms would also affect research and work methods. Every part of a temporary building should be dismantleable for use in a new project. Those parts subject to wear and weather in a permanent building should be easily replaceable, and permanent parts exceptionally durable. These are also design requirements.

These fundamental changes will have their effect on architecture. That a building can be dismantled will show and should show everywhere. The interchangeable parts of a permanent building should be changed as frankly as clothes. Temporary buildings should be as cheap, durable, beautiful and functional as those today. Their significant additional feature is that they can be dismantled at fifty year intervals in an orderly way and assembled into new buildings. This new set-up will answer the needs of modern man, although they were not known fifty years ago. The new situation will bring new architectural styles, which is nothing unusual. Architecture has derived its stimulus before from social or technical conditions.

The principle will have a clear economic effect in the future. Probably the attitude to using virgin natural resources will not be so propitious as up to now, involving as it will a variety of taxes and other charges. In that case a new builder will be happy to find as many as possible useful tax-free parts from dismantled buildings for his new house.

Old building stock

The old building stock is a problem in itself. It consists of the previously mentioned mass of 10 000 Cheops’ pyramids in Europe. Old buildings were never designed for reuse, and in spite of their durability they will age in one way or another by the year 2100 anyway. They contain billions of tonnes of concrete cast in monolithic pieces. When they were erected, it was thought that they would still be standing in the year 3500, or actually no one thought about the future at all. Most of those buildings will be pulled down within the next hundred years. How is that going to happen?

There are three acceptable options, if the landfill is rejected as one of them. First of all these materials can be used again as such. Then the second recycle is clearly less valuable than the first. A floor slab can end up as a filler for a road embankment, and good bricks can be crushed for covering a trotting-track. This has happened before, and it will happen in the future, unless the question is dealt with at the design stage. This is not the worst option. An element in the filling of a road embankment and crushed bricks on a trotting-track will save that amount of gravel and clay in some landscape of natural beauty.

The second option is to saw monolithic concrete into pieces with a diamond saw and build new structures with them. It is slightly more valuable than the previous crushing and using as a filler.

The third option is to crush old structures, like excavated rock is crushed, and use it for making new concrete. This is not proper recycling, because it makes a product that is inferior to the original.

Recycling mineral aggregates awaits its solution like others. It will not happen without social influences over generations. Market forces are too short-sighted and impatient to solve these questions, which have to be viewed centuries ahead rather than decades. Metal can be melted and poured again, plastic can be burned instead of oil, but mineral aggregates require a third solution where pieces have to be separated from the whole and combined again into a new product equal to the original.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

At the beginning of the 21st century psychiatry had to deal with hitherto unknown problems. Various computer panel games and international network contacts had already caused trouble, but the imaginary applications of interactive virtual reality became a real headache, especially among the young.

The Czech Jaroslav Kohout is a specialist in modern psychiatry, undoubtedly one of the best on the continent. He has a waiting list months long, so the Hungarian Margit Herczeg almost jumps for joy when she hears that Professor Kohout has accepted her son, Sándor, as his patient. Sándor’s symptoms first appeared when he was 15 years old. The boy was innocently interested in remote reality and virtual reality, and his parents could not have imagined what those worlds would bring with them in time. Virtual games have a similar effect as drugs on children who have lively imagination, and who otherwise may want to withdraw from their material surroundings.

So Sándor got caught up in the world of virtual reality heroes. He would confuse it with his normal life, which became meaningless in comparison, much in the same way as a drug addict’s real life dissolves in a mist. That is why Professor Kohout’s therapy of 10 weeks of normal ordinary life with all its joys and sorrows is the best cure for this young lad.

Knowledge in production

The traditional idea of production is that it concerns the working of material. This already differs from present day reality, and even more so in the future. Every product, not to mention the production process itself, includes an increasing amount of information and data processing. This means that production includes relatively less and less human labour, but also less material and energy. Human labour, material and energy are replaced by information and skills as the main elements in products and production.

For instance, a ship’s stabilisers that reduce rolling are not manually controlled. Their operation is based on observations that register the ship’s heeling angle, the speed it changes and the alteration in this speed or lateral roll. A computer performs calculations on both sides to immediately stabilise the motion, gives instructions for their position, and immediately resumes the same process again. Almost all vehicles operate at least partly in this way, including modern industrial machines. Robots are the heralds of these new machines.

A paper factory is not only a manufacturer of products, but a product itself. Its operation is automated. Workers sit at display panels and control the operations of the machines. The process is itself controlled by numerous adjusting mechanisms which operate automatically on the basis of computer programs, which have been made for following and directing the machines’ operation and material flows. Systems of this kind control almost all new factories.

The product’s own knowledge seems in the first place to make the process easier, reducing human labour and making production more efficient. If people are out of work anyway, one would think that diminishing working opportunities would cause more sorrow than joy. That’s wrong, because there will be new work in new situations. Here it is essential that skills increase the product’s efficiency. The product remains the same, but uses less material and energy.

Public databanks

This book has suggested several complicated continent-wide physical systems whose operation would not be possible without high-level automation, yet their development and construction is possible already now. These can logically be divided into different categories according to their purpose.

First of all, there is the processing and storage of information under different headings. The most important would be a on-line bookkeeping system for materials, energy and natural resources functioning throughout the continent. This database itself would be gigantic, but not impossible to compile. It would be formed by combining the bookkeeping of private and public companies. Companies would be obliged to monitor material and energy flows in the same way as they are now obliged to maintain financial accounts today.

With a continent-wide inventory it is possible, for instance, to find out where the remaining zinc is on the continent as it is becoming rarer and rarer. Only against this background is it possible to calculate all benefits and drawbacks of entire new technical systems compared to the earlier situation. Legislative control will have to be based on this kind of summary. That is why every private company and public sector must regularly enter information into a common databank.

To oblige households and individuals to do the same seems unreasonable; they are not traditionally required to keep books. Is it necessary? The significance of a continent-wide databank is indirect, used in the same way as statistics generally: for making far-reaching plans and choices. For preparing these strategies it is enough to know an average family’s spending habits in the same way as today. The lives of individuals or families would not be interfered with, nor is it necessary.

Another massive and all-embracing accounting system would deal with nature and living things on the continent. All stocks of flora and fauna, their preservation and distribution would be monitored. Only on the basis of this information will it be possible to ensure the best living conditions for animals and plants. Digital maps of their distribution and occurrence must be prepared, then it will be possible to follow changes in the populations of different species. This will provide work for thousands of people throughout Europe in the future.

These extensive information entities will serve two different objects: the first seems to be social, the second ecological. In reality they are permanently interdependent, influencing each other with the same ultimate goal: to preserve balanced and sustainable conditions throughout the whole continent.

Electronic exchanges

The extensive databases mentioned above would serve general and non-commercial needs. They correspond to today’s statistical offices. The data is not only published in book form yearly, but continuously updated in real time. Cross sections of different points of time are stored, and the course of development monitored continually.

Alongside and complementary to them are commercial exchanges, through which all semi- and finished goods, raw materials, energy, knowledge and skills are traded on the continent. The significance of these exchanges will be more apparent when the transcontinental vacuum pipeline network for transporting goods is constructed.

Then, for instance, you will be able to purchase a pair shoes like this: first select from a data tree the following branches: shoe, indoor, male, dark brown, size 43, rubber sole, laces, leather, leaving a choice of 283 models. You classify them according to toe pattern, price and manufacturer. After a rough choice you pick the ten models you most fancy viewing on your screen, look at them from different angles, call up a precise product description and ask for two pairs to be sent to your home for fitting. The shoes soon arrive, you try them on, return the pair you don’t like and electronically pay for the pair chosen. You can also leave your order with instructions on the internet, and receive information immediately a suitable pair appears on the market.

Society is obliged to protect the consumer. It will standardise the commercial data network so that the buyer need not look for a product according to manufacturer, but on the basis of the product’s characteristics. Only then are interests of the consumer properly considered. This places all manufacturers into the same class. Anybody anywhere can buy anything that is on sale in the continent. Consumers would then direct not only trade, but the entire production in the direction they wish. The consumer would then be the real power in the market.

Most business will be carried on like this. It means that shops and shop assistants will no longer be necessary in the so-called black stripe zone. Shopping would be done directly from factory stores. It will no longer be necessary to go shopping in a car for every little thing you need, drive all over the place, get caught in frustrating traffic jams, and await your turn in queues in crowded stores. Electronic trading would not take place only between consumer and producer, but within the trade itself. The meeting of offers and bids would be continuous and direct. Electronic markets would operate continuously and everywhere.

The continental goods pipeline would be in continuous use. The flow of goods, moving at speeds faster than sound, would be unbroken 24 hours a day, on weekdays and holidays, in summer and winter alike. To ensure its operation, address labels would be fixed to the consignment capsules. Sensors located at junctions would read the label in a thousandth of a second and redirect the capsule on to the right line. These scanners are but one example of the many that would have to be developed for the physical structures described here to operate efficiently.

Alongside these public, commercial and statistical data networks, teaching and health networks would be developed. They are also interactive services and I will discuss them later on under data communication.

Knowledge and skill will not only remain inside these networks. They would provide a solid background, against which it is easy to construct the details. Just as a transport network is necessary for moving goods and passengers, so continental databanks are necessary for developing details in the factories.

Knowledge in machines

What are the junctions in a data network, where the machines best show their knowledge and skill? This is best illustrated by a few examples.

1. Hundreds of fuelwood power stations are being planned for Europe. To be worthwhile, a large power station needs nearby fuelwood plantations of tens of square kilometres in size. Such plantations are best managed by robot tractors which sow the seeds, till and fertilise the soil, and harvest the crop. An unmanned tractor must be able to navigate the area, operate as programmed, and avoid creatures who have strayed across its path. It needs artificial senses in order to take decisions and mechanisms to carry out these decisions. An aircraft’s orientation and control system is much more complicated and sophisticated than what I have described here (Figure 105).

Figure 105. An aircraft cockpit simulator

2. A three tier traffic system would be set up in Europe. The middle tier consists of local feeder trains travelling at 200 kilometres per hour. They have coaches that can be added to them when travelling at full speed. These have to leave the station at a particular time, accelerate to the train’s speed coming from behind and finally brake to allow smooth coupling. The coach to be coupled has to know the speed and location of the train coming from behind, regulate its own speed accordingly, and couple without any risk. The control system of the present magnetic levitation train offers a good basis for the technology needed (Figure 106b). A modern forest harvester is another good example of sophisticated automation (Figure 106a).

Figure 106a. A walking forest harvester. The Tampere-based Plustech Company received an EU Environmental Award for their invention

Figure 106b. Maglev train control system

3. Dozens of aluminium factories would be built in Europe using scrap as their raw material. Before the scrap batches are sent to a factory from a collecting depot, their composition is examined by rough analysis. Then the batches go through a series of sensors which monitor the colour, magnetism, specific gravity and other characteristics of each piece and calculate its composition on that basis. When the composition is determined, the factory’s machinery treats each piece in the appropriate way. The muddle at the outset becomes order at the end (Figure 107).

Figure 107. Sorting scrap at an aluminium factory

The previous three very different examples illustrate the general nature of a machine’s skill in the production process. A machine is aware of its surroundings, converts its observations into a form to be handled logically, taking the essential conclusions and directing the machine’s components accordingly. The machine performs a physical function, and possibly monitors and controls it. A machine’s sensor systems can be much more sophisticated, its senses much more accurate, decisions much faster and more efficient and versatile than man’s. The performance of such machines is superior to man’s in every respect. This totality  the ability to perform multifarious sense perceptions, take decisions, give instructions and the cybernetic control of the procedure  is, in the first place, a combination of knowledge and skill, not material, not silicon chips of microscopic size or the electrons moving in them. It is skill, not matter. All this, an increasingly essential part of all machines and factories, will be the most important part of a product in the future.

Teleworking and virtual reality

After databanks, exchanges, networks and skillful machines, there is still much more that should be called production of knowledge and skill and its effects. Significant achievements are, for instance, man’s remote presence and virtual environments.

Human beings have some extraordinary qualities that are very difficult for a machine to imitate. Typical of these is recognising shapes, for instance faces. In this respect every human is a genius and his talent is comparable to those stage performers with their phenomenal mathematical memories. There are other skills that are difficult or at least very expensive to teach to a machine. For instance putting pieces together in a three dimensional environment. For these situations it is not worth constructing robotic logic in the machine to make the right decisions in any unexpected situation. A sort of intermediary form is useful, called remote presence. Here a machine scans its surroundings, signals its observations in real time to someone who then draws the necessary conclusions and gives the appropriate orders to the machine with a device like a data glove. Through his own observations the person is present in the situation, which in reality could be far away or on an unusual dimension. This avoids the necessity of complicated programming in preparation for many, unexpected observations, interpretations and their conversion into operational orders.

Remote presence is suitable in situations which are, for instance, dangerous like radiation, physically difficult like someone’s stomach, or unpleasant like monitoring in a dark, hot underground factory full of machines. Three dimensional demonstrations of a flat or house for sale can be made as a commercial application. A potential buyer can familiarise himself with it, with the views from the windows and the sounds from the neighbours, without ever having to visit the place in person. Changing the scale is also an application of remote presence. When a machining head is connected to a microscope a person can handle an article enlarged 100 000 times, to make working machines and robots which fit into one corner of a millimetre size cube.

Virtual environment is another application of remote presence. From a distance an observer can experience a real environment that exists elsewhere, or which the observer cannot otherwise reach. A virtual environment does not actually exist, it is nowhere, but has been created artificially so the observer feels himself to be in it and moving in the environment though in reality it does not exist.

One useful application of virtual reality is in design. When a building is being designed, complicated sketched spaces can be transferred from the drawing board to a virtual environment, a designer can move about beforehand in this space, vary its lighting, acoustics, colours, materials, shapes and forms so that the solution is tried out very carefully in advance. This system is also suitable for landscape architecture.

Key role of knowledge

The application of electronic knowledge and skill to future production is most important, and at the same time creates the essential difference between the black and white stripes of the zebra. Automated, electronic trading would function throughout the continent, but every village would still have its old-fashioned store where the shopkeeper sells locally-baked bread to passers-by. Pigs and cows are indeed managed in huge, automated barns, but there are also cows in the fields milked by dairymaids. Cybercabs will be everywhere, but also people on bicycles and skis.

A remote-controlled, multipurpose harvester is busy in the forest handling one tree at a time, display units monitor the well-being of livestock in the barns, goods move across the continent at great speeds, and numerous robots, successors to post office employees, direct their movements. The large cities are, in fact, intelligent concentrations of buildings which breathe, swallow, and watch the environment, sending their waste back to the countryside in a systematic and sensible way. The most important feature of the new Europe is in the use of knowledge and skill as an aid to modern living  but only as an aid.

Alongside it, and in spite of it, people will live their lives as before, making wooden toys, listening to the blackbird’s song in spring, tilling their fields of potatoes, and watching the sun set behind a clear cut skyline.