Giving Back to the Environment

It is not simple to reduce the environmental impact of automobiles worldwide. It is hard to find a straightforward solution for making automobiles better for the environment without drastically increasing costs or cutting down on performance. the best way to deal with this problem is the Life-cycle approach. The goal of the life cycle approach at is to make vehicles that are more efficient and inexpensive. It embraces environmental performance and cost factors. The life cycle of an automobile begins with material production and concludes with retirement.

The public is now conscious of environmental issues that have increased. However, the automobile industry as a whole must undertake this issue immediately. To paraphrase a segment of Richard Porters book “Economics at the wheel,” International automotive manufacturing is dominated by a fairly small number of large producers. The automobile industry is the leading manufacturing enterprise in the world. It is also one of the major industrial systems that use many resources. The automobile industries in Europe and the U.S. use approximately 46 million tons of material annually to produce 24 million vehicles. Today, a vehicle consists of

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For life-cycle design to be effective, further initiative taken by automobile manufactures is absolutely necessary. In the same C&EN article, Joel P Clark, professor of engineering at Massachusetts Institute of technology points out, “The main trade-offs involve the product performance characteristics, like fuel economy, noise generated by the vehicle in the passenger compartment, and acceleration, as well as costs and environmental issues” (25). They can also bring about ways of improving looks, comfort and safety.

Opportunities for environmental progress exist during each life-cycle stage of an automobile.

Environmental impacts in the retirement stage consist of waste produced during different retirement processes. However, one cannot judge the environmental performance of a product solely by its recyclability. To paraphrase the description of this process given in the C&EN article, lubricants are often recycled as oil.

Cost is an extremely important thing to think about. Unfortunately, most of the plastics used in cars are difficult to recycle or reuse. Release of gaseous, liquid and solid materials into the environment cause the impacts” (26). They account for more than 80% of the material used in today's vehicles.

Approximate Word count = 2264
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

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