Assessment of Industrial Pollution Prevention

In order to explore all waste reduction opportunities in any process, it is desirable to have a systematic approach to consider all the important factors. These factors include the location of wastewater sources, the facility available to reduce this waste, and the determination of its economical feasibility. This requires a team of experts fix m among management, plant operators, engineers, analysts, environmentalists, economists and the like, who have the following clear goals  

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Making companies prepare plans which focus on safer chemical use has proved particularly successful in the USA. The benefits of mandatory pollution prevention planning have been demonstrated in the state of Massachusetts. Here, over 550 companies had to assess toxic use reduction options with technical help supplied by university and government experts. Toxic use reduction strategies included material substitution and product reformulation. Within ten years, industry has reduced the use of toxic chemicals by 40%, by-product waste by 58% and toxic emissions by 80%. A cost benefit analysis reveals that the same companies saved a total of Saved a total of USD 14 million (Euro 18.76 million) overthis period through the adoption of more efficient and safer processes. The programme is ongoing and has been expanded to community outreach and assessment of substitutes forsome hazardous material flows and products within the state. 

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is part of a special section on the trends and challenges of the new environmental landscape. Another area seen as a priority is that of exposure estimations and the elucidation of the biological mechanisms of chemicals. Pollution prevention, which aims to deal with problems before they occur, is clearly becoming a salient approach to industrial ecology (Environmental Science Technology, 1996 Anastas and Lankey, 2000). 

Nabholz JV, Clements RG, Zeeman MG, Osborn KC, Wedge R. 1993. Validation of structure activity relationships used by the USEPA s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics for the environmental hazard assessment of industrial chemicals. In Gorsuch JW, Dwyer FJ, Ingersoll CG, LaPoint TW, editors. Environmental toxicology and risk assessment. Volume 2. Philadelphia (PA) American Society for Testing and Materials, p 571-591. 

The Pollution Prevention Act of 199027 requires facilities to report information about the management of Toxic Relief Inventory (TRI) chemicals in waste and efforts made to eliminate or reduce those quantities. The data summarized in Table 3.38 cover a four-year period and is meant to provide a basic understanding of the quantities of waste handled by the industry, the methods typically used to manage this waste, and recent trends in these methods.1 TRI waste management data can be used to assess trends in source reduction within individual industries and facilities, and for specific TRI chemicals. This information could then be used as a tool in identifying opportunities for pollution prevention compliance assistance activities. 

Peculiar industrial history and the geographic position of Karabash as a town of rather isolated local industry within the industrially saturated Urals region have made it an object of intensive ecological investigation in the framework of the international project The Assessment of Priorities for Middle Urals Environmental Pollution Prevention . The project was carried our under the aegis of the International Scientific and Technological Center (ISTC). One of the tasks of this project was to find out quantitative indicators of chemical impact of the local industry on the environment. 

OTA (1986) Serious reduction of hazardous waste for pollution prevention and industrial efficiency. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Washington, DC... 

Concern over the dissemination of confidential product information. If a pollution-prevention assessment reveals confidential data pertinent to a company s product, fear may exist that the organization will lose a competitive edge with other businesses in the industry. 

An energy efficiency audit and a general pollution prevention assessment of the operations for a building industry, to determine if waste reduction and cost reduction are possible. Operations conducted at this facility include form fabrication, concrete mixing and pouring, and sand blasting and acid washing to impart the finish. These concrete slabs are formulated with a variety of sands and stone specific to the needs of the customer. 

Fig. 3. Macroscale pollution prevention can be studied by examining waste inventories, by examining raw materials (industrial metabolism), or by examining products (life cycle analyses) (U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, 1992).

The Pollution Prevention Act also adds to the reporting requirements already established under the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act Previously voluntary reporting of recycling or pollution-reduction activities is now mandatory. The intent is to make IIU data useful for assessing industry s progress in pollution prevention. 

These Amendments set a priority for pollution prevention with respect to land disposal of hazardous waste. Industries generating hazardous waste were required to establish a hazardous-waste reduction program, as distinct from recycling. Reporting requirements have been established in order to assess the success of pollution-reduction strategies. 

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