ISRI seeks input for REMADE Institute efforts

The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), Washington, has announced it is seeking input from industry professionals on current technical and economic recycling challenges in connection with the REMADE Institute.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) introduced the Reducing Embodied-energy and Decreasing Emissions (REMADE) Institute in January 2017. It is led by the Sustainable Manufacturing Innovation Alliance, which is part of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

ISRI has been involved in REMADE and its development for nearly four years. The association is a REMADE Affiliate Member.

REMADE is focused on driving down the cost of technologies essential to the reusing, recycling and remanufacturing of materials such as metals, fibers, polymers and used electronics. The institute has the following five-year goals:

5 to 10 percent improvement in manufacturing material efficiency;
50 percent increase in remanufacturing applications;
30 percent increase in efficiency of remanufacturing operations;
30 percent increase in recycling efficiencies; and
A targeted 50 percent increase in sales for the U.S. manufacturing industry to $21.5 billion and the creation of a next-generation recycling and manufacturing workforce.

This week, REMADE is holding its Technology Roadmap Workshop near RIT.

As part of this technology roadmapping, REMADE has requested industry feedback regarding the technical and economic barriers that the industry faces every day. Companies do not need to be members of REMADE to participate in the surveys. To this end, REMADE prepared the following four separate anonymous surveys:

Managing Manufacturing Material (Feedstock) Consumption
Design Tools and Methods for Reuse, Remanufacturing and Recycling
Improving Recycling and Recovery
Sustainably Growing your Remanufacturing Business

Survey participation involves these steps:

Respond – Answer two questions to identify and describe the biggest barrier you face.
Rate – Review a minimum of five responses from other participants and rate the extent to which your company faces the same.
Explore – Continue to review and rate comments from other participants.

Once completed with the survey, ISRI says participants will be sent a unique link, which gives users an opportunity to visit the survey later and offer additional feedback. Participants also can view responses that other companies have identified and anonymously share their experiences with others respondents.

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ISRI says, “Your input will be extremely helpful and important for REMADE’s technology roadmapping. The collected information will help shape the direction of REMADE’s five-year program. These surveys will be open through the end of September. ISRI appreciates your taking the time to provide input.”

For questions about these surveys or REMADE, contact David Wagger, ISRI’s chief scientist/director of environmental management, at 202-662-8533.