Abstract

The organization of several industries into industrial networks offers possibilities for symbiotic cooperation that implies for all the participating industries a higher efficiency in the use of matter and work energy. A detailed example from the Danish town Kalundborg is mentioned to illustrate these possibilities. The term “industrial ecology” is generally applied for the discipline based on the idea that industries can learn from nature how to be more effective. A wider use of recirculation, reuse, and ecosystem organization will, according to industrial ecology, inevitably lead to a higher efficiency in the use of resources, as it is known from ecosystems. In addition to the ecological network, the Nordic Waste Exchange is mentioned.