Recycling Study To Focus On Industry

The National Science Foundation (NSF) will fund a University of Rhode Island study of industry-related recycling practices. The study, to be done by the universitys Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (IME) Department will also study the recovery of value from manufactured products before they are discarded. The two-year grant for $99,850 was awarded to the IME department by the NSF/Lucent Technologies Industrial Ecology Fellowship Program. The primary goals of the research project are to develop best practices for recycling plants and to provide engineers with analysis tools for designing "green" products. According to recent trends, effective take back and recycling of manufactured products will become the expected practice for U.S. manufacturers.