As a tiny part of my research I use the European Commissions work on Best Available Technology for pollution prevention. (I originally used the U.S. EPA as well, but found it contained nothing the EU did not, while the EU had a great deal on these issues the EPA never thought of.)
There are a lot of good technologies for pollution prevention. But it turns out that somewhere between 3% and 15% of toxic waste and water pollution by industries arise because they don't pay enough attention to housekeeping. (Some air pollution happens for this reason too, but not as much.) When I first encountered this term, I assumed it was a metaphor, but it turns out be literally true. A great many toxic waste spills, and a lot of water pollution occurs because of mistakes that could be avoided through lessons housekeeping tasks would teach. For example,
1) if you are cooking something use a larger pot than the bare minimum needed to hold what you are cooking; this minimizes spilling and splashing. 2) No matter how careful you are spills and splashes happen. Keep cleaning supplies handy. 3) Blot, then wipe. 4) Soak before you rinse.
And so on. I have not yet run into a mention of a manufacturer that saved millions through the startling discovery that cleaning goes faster if you start the top and work downwards, but it would not surprise me.
I would be willing to bet that this stuff has been overlooked for as long as it has because industrial processes are designed largely by people who don't do their own housework, and even more, by people who don't respect housework.
While there have been women engineers as long as there have been engineers, even today most engineers are men, and that is even truer the further back you go. Even today, the burden of housework overwhelmingly falls on women, and that is even truer the further back in the past you go. (At least in the last 100 years.)
So overwhelmingly these processes have been designed by men. Similarly designing industrial process is at the intersection of management and engineering – meaning it is mostly done by well paid employees who can afford to do their own housework. If I wanted to generate large number of on-list attacks on me, I would say it is a job generally performed by the middle class. At any rate it is mostly done by people who can afford to pay others to do their housework for them.
Now I'm not saying that no one who designed these processes did housework; there have always been men who housework and women who did not. There have always been people who can afford to pay others to clean up after them who choose to clean up after themselves. Still I'm betting that an overwhelming percent of those did process design were (until recently) not people who did much housework. This would have to be empirically verified or disproved.
I'm also betting that even the people who did their own housework did not benefit from it, because they did not respect housework as work requiring knowledge and skill. They thought of it as mindless drudgery instead of the highly skilled drudgery it actually is. Because housework is gendered and seen as work for women, and work women do is not respected, its value was overlooked where it could have saved millions of dollars and (over the last 50 years) millions of lives.
Now I can't give sources on the feminist part and class analysis; this is all speculation on my part (as signaled by my phrasing about being willing to bet). Empirical research would be needed, and a more sophisticated analysis. But I can give you rock solid sources on the issue of housekeeping in industry, and what decent housekeeping could have saved in toxic pollution, water pollution and wasted chemicals and materials.
The following is a list of reference documents by the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) on the application of best available techniques. They are very long – but the section on housekeeping is always towards the beginning. Apparently it has now become industry standard as one of the first things to examine; because it is a low cost pollution reduction method that is almost always overlooked.
These can be found at various places. But this UK site was the fastest to download when I did my research: http://www.sepa.org.uk/ppc/brefs/
The subjects may be inferred from the document names.
http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/paper_pulp_manuf.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/cement_lime_produc.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/ceramics.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/chlor_alkali_manuf.pdf' http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/cooling_systems.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/ferrous_metals.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/food_milk.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/glass.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/iron_and_steel.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/large_combustion.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/inorganics_ammonia.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/large_vol_organics.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/nonferrous_metal.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/organic_fine_chemicals.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/refineries.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/slaughterhouses.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/smitheries.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/tanning.pdf http://www.sepa.org.uk/pdf/ppc/brefs/textiles.pdf
I'm not pushing anyone to do this. But I know there are always people out there looking for academic topics, and here is a chance to cover some lightly trodden ground. Just putting it out there in case anyone finds it interesting or useful.
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