The application of MFA for rural industrial symbiosis assessment

One of proposed strategies to solve current environmental challenges includes the industrial symbiosis. However, proper evaluation methods are required to measure the potential benefits of industrial symbiosis, one of those includes the material flow analysis (MFA). MFA develops a unified database and a Step-by-Step process starting from the input, process, and output process to clarify the distribution of waste and the recycling process in the aluminum industry. The aluminum industry is regarded as an energy-intensive and high-pollution industry. The development of industrial symbiosis in the aluminum industry has significantly reduced environmental pressures and facilitated green development and green industry. Home industries that process aluminum slag raw materials require high energy thereby generating high waste during the production process. The applied method includes material flow analysis (MFA). The MFA results indicated that the production elements of the aluminum slag industry consist of 11 elements ranging from raw materials, fuel, clean water, human resources, capital, production processes, production equipment, housekeeping, products produced, waste to waste utilization. Approximately 44% of the industry sold waste to other industries, 42% of the waste was reprocessed, and 14% of the aluminum industry stockpiles production was in the form of waste in open spaces. The industrial symbiosis in the aluminum industry was an open cycle, indicating that the symbiosis produces waste, which had not been fully utilized; but in fact, the waste had potential as a source of raw materials, energy, and materials in other industrial processes.