We've all heard of peak oil, but what about peak hafnium, or peak terbium, peak silver or peak lead? Hafnium, which is important in computer chips, could be depleted by 2017, and terbium, used in florescent light bulbs, by 2012. Silver could be impossible to find in 4 to 29 years, and lead in 8 to 42 years.
One solution is to recycle these materials, but how? Janet Unruh is a person who believes that everything can be recycled 100% – provided we learn how to design things properly and set up the right systems for materials recovery. With her knowledge and experience in manufacturing, having worked for the last decade in the truck manufacturing industry, she has founded “The Institute for Material Sustainability” in Portland, Oregon, where she lives.
Through her book Recycle Everything - Why We Must, How We Can and the Institute, she hopes to enable industries to transition to more sustainable methods of using materials for manufacture and recovery through recycling. Hosted by Stephanie Potter.