Emergy evaluation provided global performance indicators that were used to assess the impact of waste
exchanges on the sustainability of a sulfuric acid production system (SAPS) and a titanium dioxide production
system (TDPS) in Pan-zhi-hua City, China. Impact of emissions was quantified in terms of emergy
and integrated into the classic emergy-based indicators. Results show that waste exchanges improve the
sustainability of the two systems, although the SAPS benefits more from the waste exchanges than the
TDPS from an economic perspective however, the impact of emissions reduces their sustainability to some
degree. This study creates awareness and brings new insight to the gains achieved with resource recovery
from waste in the interrelated industrial systems, which is derived from the mutualism relationship
existing in natural ecosystems. Finally, this paper puts forward some corresponding suggestions.