The term industrial nutrients refers to materials used in manufacturing, the use and disposal of products, and emphasizes the fact that materials often discarded as waste can be reused or recycled, thus becoming useful new inputs or nutrients to sustain the industrial system, analogous to the nutrients that humans ingest to sustain their bodies. Additionally it emphasizes the fact that industrial nutrients can cycle through the industrial ecosystem just as nutrients such as water and carbon cycle through the natural ecosystem. The industrial nutrient approach to manufacturing facilitates the design of the manufacturing process in order to maximize sustainability and minimize harm to the ecosystem by reusing materials or returning them to the environment in useful forms.

The industrial nutrient concept is integral to analyses of ...