Material Value: More Sustainable, Less Wasteful Manufacturing of Everything from Cell Phones to Cleaning Products

by Julia L.F. Goldstein

Creative Solutions from Smart Businesses

Are you concerned about plastic waste and its effect on public health and the environment? You're not alone.

Are you confused about recycling and composting and what to toss where? Join the club.

Read Material Value to learn about the challenges facing the manufacturing world and how to make choices that are less wasteful and less harmful to people and the environment.

Get the inside scoop
"This book is an antidote to a world too dominated by extreme it is a detailed, balanced and fascinating account of how we can make the modern material world more sustainable." --Mark Miodownik, author of Stuff Matters and Liquid

"If you want to take informed actions to support a better world, read this book."--Anne Janzer, author of Subscription Marketing and Writing To Be Understood

Material Value is organized in four parts. Part I sets the stage with a discussion of chemicals and toxins, the responsibilities of businesses to be transparent, and the challenge of resource reduction. Part II explains how engineered materials, specifically plastics and metals, are made, providing both historic and forward-looking information. Part III delves into manufacturing methods and explains why some are more environmentally friendly than others. Part IV looks at steps that companies and individuals can take and discusses the effect of various incentives, from taxes and bans to green business certifications. Interviews with inspiring business professionals are sprinkled throughout the chapters to illustrate the concepts with examples and personal stories.

The challenges are huge, and the answers are not always obvious, but Material Value shares a message of cautious optimism. Smart and creative entrepreneurs, business owners, and executives from companies large and small are working on solutions and individuals can help them succeed.

If you care about making the material world more sustainable and want to learn more, read Material Value to discover the true value of materials and how we as a society can use them more wisely.

Genres: Sustainability, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

Published April 22, 2019

About the author

Julia L F Goldstein is the award-winning author of Material Value, where she shares her passion for materials and sustainability. Her company, JLFG Communications, produces white papers, articles, and other website content for purpose-driven manufacturing companies.

Julia is active in her local writing community and leads the Seattle chapter of the Nonfiction Authors Association. When she’s not writing, she enjoys playing flute and piccolo and participating in triathlons.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book could be titled “Another Inconvenient Truth,” because it takes as a starting point what most polemical environmentalist literature does not: that we humans need fossil fuels, factories, manufacturing, and chemicals--even toxic ones. We also need corporations and jobs. The author accepts that these aspects of our lives are not going away, at least not in the absence of the environmental crash/catastrophe we are desperately trying to avoid. Once that foundation has been laid, the rest of the book can be built on it. The result is a largely even-handed discussion of what the built environment is made of, how it got that way, and a clear-eyed look at what steps might be taken to make the whole enterprise more sustainable, allowing humans to tread more lightly on the earth.

The author, Julia LF Goldstein, has a PhD in materials science and is a trained engineer and award-winning technical writer. This background molds her prose for better and worse. Her explanation of why and how the air has gotten cleaner since the 1970s is well-written, clear, and easy for the educated lay person to follow, as are her explanations of why and how it can be difficult to remove toxins from the environment. I hadn’t known the scope of the e-waste recycling problem until reading this book either, and I’m now giving myself two cheers for keeping my old cell phone a while longer.

This book also provides an interesting early-2019 snapshot of new companies and new technologies at work. Some of these new technologies are fascinating, and seem to be right out of science fiction. There is the sonic generator technology used by Ronin8, that uses underwater sound waves to sort materials by density. There is EcoSheep, a company selling a sheep oil lubricant that works better than petroleum-based competitors. And there is Mighty-O donuts, an almost zero-waste vegan donut shop. Reading about these companies gives me hope that entrepreneurship will indeed be a large part of the sustainability solution.

The writing is still quite technical, however, and is somewhat lacking in the areas of storytelling and reader engagement. To address this, Goldstein occasionally throws in an anecdote or two from her own experience. For example, she spends a few pages comparing the different kinds of tennis racquets she has owned, some made of carbon fiber. She also describes the milk she has purchased in glass bottles from a Seattle-area delivery service as delicious. Anecdotes like these can help to humanize her for the reader, as it did me, but they may backfire if the reader doesn’t share her biases or demographic. Millennials reading it might end up feeling lectured by their mother or teacher. People who can’t afford carbon fiber tennis racquets or milk delivery may feel condescended to. Environmental activists may be impatient with the incremental and halfway progress that these measures will bring about. And as someone who has studied molecular biology and genetic engineering, even I thought that her willingness to imply that the controversial agricultural weed killer Roundup is a public health menace on a par with Radium or Tobacco was unnecessarily hyperbolic. But that there is something there to annoy people on multiple sides of the political landscape probably only means that she has gotten the tone about right.

Goldstein makes extensive use of interviews of CEOs and founders of companies who are implementing green policies. This is an inspired idea, and these interviews are promising for reader engagement. But here too, more vivid language would be helpful. Instead of being written in a standard book or magazine interview format, with an introduction, questions from the author, and answers from the interviewee in his or her own voice interleaved, the interviews are summarized in their entirety in several paragraphs of the author’s workmanlike technical prose. I found this format confusing enough that I didn’t even realize that I was reading the first “interview” before I was halfway through it.

The exception is the interview with Smokey Peck, of Interwest Paper in Salt Lake City UT. His interview comes the closest to the type of interview I would expect to continue reading in a magazine. Although it is not written in his voice, the interview provides several stories of Smokey overcoming obstacles or making prescient decisions; for example he has been ahead of the curve on inventory control for years, and he convinced a resistant Utah state representative to support curbside recycling. Smokey also provides the author with some well-chosen quotes and his is the only name I remembered while writing this review without having to look it up.

The other interview subjects are similarly well-chosen to illustrate the author’s points; I only wish she had fleshed the subjects out a bit more and given them more of their own authentic voices. I believe this would help further humanize these business leaders and give a face to the corporations that remain anonymous and all-too-easy to scapegoat.

I will end this review by saying that I think every American adult should read this book, and that more authors should write even-handed, non-hyperbolic books like this one. Material Value is occasionally slow going, but overall it is a refreshing and practical antidote to the polarized sound bites that dominate so much of our political discourse about climate and sustainability.

[Barbara (The Bibliophage) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on my book blog, TheBibliophage.com.

Julia Goldstein is a Ph.D. materials engineer. And her passion is exactly in line with subtitle of her book: More Sustainable, Less Wasteful Manufacturing of Everything from Cell Phones to Cleaning Products.

Goldstein takes readers through a journey that is part technical, part chemical, and part applicable to our own lives. Even if you don’t make manufacturing decisions, learning about them can lead you to chose different products for your life. The concepts Goldstein discusses are not entirely new to me. But she elucidates the details in memorable ways.

This morning, I threw away some packaging from a holiday gift of shipped fruit. And I thought of Material Value. The box included cardboard, tissue, foam, and another layer of heavy padding that I didn’t split open. Sadly, I put all that waste into the garbage can and ultimately in a landfill. What I learned from Goldstein is that the company selling the fruit could make commitments to lower the amount of packaging. For example, shipping from a closer facility, or innovating more reusable or recyclable packaging. Or even developing a program where I could send the packaging back to them to be repurposed.

In Goldstein’s narrative, these thought processes currently exist in some companies. They’re primarily technology companies, although she also includes an example of a donut shops chain. What’s important to me as a consumer is the kind of critical thinking and decision making this book encourages. Not just for manufacturers or retailers, but for consumers like me.

My conclusions

A note about my rating: The information contained in this book is detailed and scientific. That's easily a 4-star for content. But as a non-technical, non-engineer the writing was challenging to grasp. So, I bumped a star off. If you're a technical reader, this could be more than a 3-star read for you.

This is a valuable book that covers a wide range of sustainability topics. Parts of it angle towards engineers and their technical counterparts. Other chapters focus more on consumer options and choices. For me, the former chapters were difficult to get through. But when I related more to the content, I learned a lot.

Goldstein interviews many people in a variety of industries to add context to her concepts. This is a helpful aspect of the book, and keeps it from being too much like an extended trade journal article.

If you’re interested in making more sustainable, less wasteful choices in your life, this is a solid discussion of the options.

Pair with The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, which discusses similar issues with a different focus.

Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the author for a free digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

An in-depth study of how materials like plastic and metals are not only made, but how businesses can use new knowledge to extract these materials without any damage being done to human life and the environment as a whole take center stage in author Julia Goldstein’s novel, “Material Value: More Sustainable, Less Wasteful Manufacturing of Everything from Cell Phones to Cleaning Products”. Here is the synopsis.



The Synopsis



Have you wondered why gold is so expensive or why so little plastic packaging is recycled? This highly readable book with a unique perspective on environmental sustainability answers these questions and more.

Readers will learn:


How metals and plastics are made and what happens when they are recycled The challenges that manufacturers face when trying to make their facilities and products less toxic and less wasteful How manufacturers can extract the value of materials while doing less damage to human health and the environment The role of individuals, agencies, and governments in improving the use and reuse of materials How regulations can stifle or promote innovation How smart companies are embracing the triple bottom line--profit, people, planet--to yield creative solutions that make manufacturing safer and less wasteful Why some big corporations painted as evildoers deserve a second look. How reporting standards are making it easier to get a full picture of a company's environmental footprint The author explains concepts clearly and concisely through compelling examples and personal stories. Hear the journeys of:


A business owner recycling scrap from airplane manufacturing A former geologist running a chain of donut shops Two entrepreneurs committed to improving e-waste processing An executive promoting social and environmental responsibility at a major electronics company A chemist developing safer cleaning products Consultants helping businesses embrace practices that save resources and money Other business professionals devoted to making the world a better place Concerned citizens with or without a background in manufacturing or business will find surprising answers to the questions facing companies as they work toward making better use and reuse of materials. Readers will come away with a new awareness of the steps they can take to help the business world succeed in making manufacturing more sustainable and less wasteful.

The Review

Not only is this nonfiction title informative and descriptive, but relates the knowledge of this specific field in a relatable way that is not difficult to understand, which is something that truly stands out from other textbook style novels. Using her expertise in the field and study of materials science, the author uses a mixture of personal anecdote, first hand accounts and detailed examples to drive the points she is making home.

From challenging the differences between companies who care about the environment and those who only worry about the perceived image of “sustainability”, to theories and visions of a specific plastic that in theory could capture carbon emissions, and in that same theory envisioning a field of trees made of this material in an effort to reduce the carbon in our environment, the author explores the ins and outs of the field in great detail, and gives both business owners, others in the field and interested readers a chance to really see what it takes to make a more sustainable and less wasteful manufacturing society as a whole.

The Verdict

This is a must read for anyone interested in materials science and the more sustainable way to maintain a business in manufacturing. It’s through, intelligent and relatable all at once, and gives new and fresh insights into how to make our world safer yet retain a high end manufacturing business all at once. From studying how materials are made and the different elements of the periodic table that are required for said materials, to the safe practices that could be implemented to keep people and the environment safe, to mining operations of material and how various countries and their specific working conditions due to war, this novel explores it all. If you haven’t yet, be sure to grab your copy of “Material Value: More Sustainable, Less Wasteful Manufacturing of Everything from Cell Phones to Cleaning Products” by Julia Goldstein today.

[Suanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have a long-time interest in recycling to the extent that I organized a clean-up of my high school’s grounds with the first Earth Day way back in 1970—and was threatened with expulsion if “you hippies do anything untoward.” For those reasons, I was eager to read Goldstein’s book, Material Value. She is highly qualified, having a PhD in materials science and working as an engineer before migrating to journalism. Despite her extensive intellectual prowess, I found Material Value easy to read and follow. The book is a goldmine of information. I kept interrupting my son’s TV watching to inform him of a new fact.

I learned that determining what is “green” and what isn’t is harder to determine that one would think. An example Goldstein gives is that plastic cartons to transport fruits and vegetables to grocery stores are actually “greener” that wood or cardboard.

She also talks about how chemicals in some materials can affect humans. For instance, since the sixties, BPA (an industrial chemical) has been used to make some plastics and resins used in containers that store food and beverages, such as water bottles. Research has shown that BPA can seep into food or beverages from those containers. Exposure to BPA is a concern because of possible long-term health effects of BPA on the brain, behavior and prostate gland of fetuses, infants and children.

I was also fascinated by Dr. Goldstein's statistics on the costs of recycling the gold in cell phones versus mining virgin gold.

If you’re interested in greener living, this book is a good place to start your research and can lead you into further topics.

[Drew Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently discovered a book titled Material Value: More Sustainable Manufacturing of Everything from Cell Phones to Cleaning Products by Dr. Julia Goldstein, a material science Ph.D., engineer and technical writer. This book appealed to me because, based on Dr. Goldstein’s background, it seemed like it would help me improve my ability to talk about sustainability.

Over the past five or six years, I have read books about various materials that compete with plastics, such as sand and glass, concrete, wood and paper products, ceramics, composites like fiberglass and carbon fiber, as well as books about various metals such as steel, aluminum, copper, brass and titanium. The more I learn about the properties and environmental costs of non-plastic materials, the better able I am to promote performance plastics and persuade people that plastics have unique features and benefits that no other materials can match.

As someone who sells custom fabricated plastic products and distributes performance plastic materials, I am vitally interested in the way plastics are viewed from a social and political point of view. There are regulatory and environmental forces at work in our society that cause some to see plastics as less environmentally responsible than other materials. I am doing my part to change this anti-plastics bias by learning just how sustainable our products and processes are, so we can then make the plastics industry increasingly more sustainable.

Material Value looks at the ways consumers and producers make decisions about material selection and how analyzing — and improving — the manufacturing process can drive us toward greater environmental sustainability.

To paraphrase the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website, sustainability is “the creation and maintenance of conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations.”

Four principles of sustainability
The first part of Material Value discusses the four principles of sustainability. These principles were devised by The Natural Step, a global non-profit, whose mission is to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society. The Natural Step’s four principles of sustainability are as follows:

Eliminate systematic increases in the amount of material extracted from the Earth
Eliminate systematic increases in production of toxic substances of concern
Avoid systematic increases in destruction of natural resources
Avoid practices that contribute to undermining people’s ability to meet their basic needs or create unsafe working conditions
There’s also a discussion in this first section of the book about how much the continuous improvement aspects of Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma overlap with sustainable business practices and the circular economy.

Material comparisons
The second part of Material Value compares plastics to light and heavy metals, with a chapter on each. The plastics section starts with a quote from the IAPD website, “There is absolutely no way you could, or would want to, go a day without interacting in some way with performance plastic.” The chapter goes on to provide a concise history of the development of the various families of thermoplastics. It also has an interesting discussion of the differences between bio-based and bio-degradable plastics, as well as the differences between compostable and recyclable plastics. The history of plastic information is well organized and has stories I had never heard before about the development of some common plastics such as low-density polyethylene (LDPE). The metal section has a good historical description of the different ways that metals have evolved over the years.

Manufacturing
The third part of Material Value talks about manufacturing. One chapter is about recycling of metals, plastics, composites and how well consumers generally comply with community recycling programs. This is also the section of the book where Dr. Goldstein introduces one of the big ideas of Material Value, which is “For mass adoption of a greener solution, the solution needs to work as well as the conventional product or method it is replacing.” She follows that idea with a wish list for the ideal plastic which, among other things, would “possess all the desirable properties of the best-performing plastics in common use…be easily recyclable…be made from renewable resources…(and)..would not negatively impact growth of food crops…be bio-benign…disintegrate rapidly into fragments less than 2 mm in size…(and) have no step in its production which poses a health risk.”

Taking action
The fourth and final section is taking action. The author points out that “knowledge is great” but without using that knowledge, sustainability doesn’t get done. This section has a chapter on regulations and certifications and how they can, but may not always, lead to a more sustainable process or organization. I also learned the difference between a B-Corporation and a Benefit Corporation and the difference between the Global Reporting Initiative and the Carbon Disclosure Project. The book wraps up with a list of examples of the ways that each of us, in our different roles, can take steps toward sustainability.

Throughout the book, Dr. Goldstein includes interviews with entrepreneurs who are working on market-based solutions to making the world economy more sustainable. There is a fascinating person named Smokey Peck from Utah who is using clever methods to reduce packaging waste. Another interesting interview is with the vice president of innovation for a cleaning products company who is constantly searching for substitutes for petroleum-based raw materials.

This book will be of interest to other plastic professionals like me because the author has a background in plastic product development. She approaches the topic of sustainability in a practical way and acknowledges that plastics and fossil fuels are not going away anytime soon. Dr. Goldstein also takes a realistic and sympathetic view toward how difficult it can be for leaders of plastic businesses to make planning decisions for more sustainable processes that don’t have an obvious benefit to their company’s profitability or reputation. For all these reasons, I highly recommend Material Value: More Sustainable Manufacturing of Everything from Cell Phones to Cleaning Products by Dr. Julia Goldstein to anyone curious about sustainability and plastics.

[Bob Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been an environmental activist for 48 years, and have always kept up with the science. I am well informed. All the same, in reading this book, I have learned lots, and have found that some of my beliefs needed revision. Julia has done me a great service in educating me in fields of science and engineering I have been aware of, but not conversant with. I should have been.
The same is true for other people who care about the life support system of our planet. You need to know what's in this book.
While the subject matter includes highly technical, scientific considerations, this is presented in a chatty way that leads to interesting reading, and includes incidental snippets of knowledge that's like candy to a learning addict like me.
As you'd expect from a scientist, the book is organised in a logical manner, the many facts presented in a way that makes them easy to grasp. When reading "About the Author" at the end of the book, I found that Julia is well versed in communication, which explains the clarity of presentation throughout this valuable book.

[Yoo-Yoo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thorough overview with lots of interesting case studies, covers a variety of relevant topics. Avoids the pitfall of blanket generalizations; does a good job exploring the subtleties of trade-offs between optimizing for energy use/waste/pollution. Also addresses supply chain transparency issues, the problem of green-washing, and explains new sustainability-focused certifications and structures for businesses (B Corps!). There are several shoutouts to the Triple bottom line (People, Planet, and Profit); the concept is a common thread throughout the book.

I wish there was more thorough life-cycle analysis for several of the case studies, they all seemed to be mostly beneficial, but whether they were *truly* better than the existing solutions was not clearly proven in several cases. Overall, though, a good overview with lots of breadth.

[gj indieBRAG · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are proud to announce that MATERIAL VALUE by Julia Goldstein is a B.R.A.G.Medallion Honoree. This tells readers that this book is well worth their time and money!

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very data-heavy and technical book - which has positives and negatives. If that's what you're looking for, then this would probably appeal to you greatly, but if that's something you typically skim over, then this is probably not for you. Overall, this is a very useful book and will be one that I pair with other sustainability books to create a comprehensive understanding of sustainable manufacturing.

"Material Value" is a comprehensive exploration of sustainable and environmentally conscious manufacturing practices. The book delves into various industries, providing insights into how products like cell phones and cleaning products can be produced with a reduced environmental impact. Goldstein offers practical solutions and strategies for manufacturers to adopt more sustainable approaches, emphasizing the importance of minimizing waste and prioritizing environmental stewardship in the production process.

[Gina Rae Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Material Value by Julia Goldstein is an excellent book. It covers the materials we use every day and how to become more conscious of their effects on our life. The author speaks in a language the average person can understand. The book layout is such that each chapter flows into the next keeping you interested yet never overwhelmed with information.

Material Value discusses what our options are and how we can make a difference as individuals. It is so much more than the typical Reduce, Re-use, Recycle cliches that we normally hear. Material value educates us so we can make a real difference.

I would recommend Material Value to readers of all ages hoping to live a more sustainable life and better the world for future generations.


I received a digital review copy of this book. The above review is my honest opinion.

[Fred Fanning · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book on sustainability and recycling. I learned a lot and I am sure others would too. The author provides information for knowledge and points that the reader can use to take action. I liked the book and will continue to use it as a reference for years to come.