How to distinguish two flows?

Question

In a database, there are many flows representing many different materials and energy, but how can I know if a flow represents copper or iron without looking at the title? For example, the flows representing copper and glass cullet have the same flow property (Mass), but why are they two different flows?

Answer 1

the advantage of having an individual reference flow for each process is that when linking processes automatically (when creating a product system), then there is no risk of linking the wrong process due to ambiguous flow names.

Comments

Thanks. But I'm still confused. Maybe my question is not clear enough. More specifically, if I gather some data about domestic waste, how can I create a flow based on the data I collected?