The contributions that biotechnology has made to health care and agriculture have received much attention, and now society is beginning to see the benefits of biotechnology’s “third wave”—industrial biotech. This third wave of biotechnology is already successfully competing with traditional manufacturing processes and has shown promise for achieving industrial sustainability. To industry, sustainable development means continuous innovation, improvement and use of “clean” technologies to make fundamental changes in pollution levels and resource consumption. An industrially sustainable process should, in principle, be characterized by

·      Reduction or elimination of toxic waste.

·      Lower greenhouse gases.

·      Low consumption of energy and nonrenewable raw materials (and high use of carbohydrate feedstocks, such as sugars and starch).

·      Lower manufacturing cost.

INDUTRIES BENIFITTED BY ENVIRONMENT BIOTECHNOLOGY

Chemical industry: using biocatalysts to produce novel compounds, reduce waste byproducts and improve chemical purity.

Plastics industry: decreasing the use of petroleum for plastic production by making “green plastics” from renewable crops such as corn or soybeans.

Paper industry: improving manufacturing processes, including the use of enzymes to lower toxic byproducts from pulp processes.

Textiles industry: lessening toxic byproducts of fabric dyeing and finishing processes. Fabric detergents are becoming more effective with the addition of enzymes to their active ingredients.

Food industry: improving baking processes, fermentation-derived preservatives and analysis techniques for food safety.

Livestock industry: adding enzymes to increase nutrient uptake and decrease phosphate byproducts.

Energy industry: using enzymes to manufacture leaner biofuels from agricultural wastes