Pollution Prevention Act of

There are profound opportunities for both industiy and the individual to prevent the generation of waste indeed, pollution prevention is today primarily stimulated by economics, legislation, liabihty concerns, and the enhanced environmental benefit of managing waste at the source. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 has estabhshed pollution prevention as a national policy, declaring that waste should be prevented or reduced at the source wherever feasible, while pollu-... 

In the fall of 1990, the U.S. Congress passed the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 (10). This act established a nahonal policy that (11) ... 

The remaining Sections e.xainine tluce important topics as tliey relate to the subject title of tliis book. Section 2.7 reviews the details of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency s (USEPA s) Risk Management Program while Section 2.8 provides information on the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). The chapter continues with a short Section (2.9) on potential environmental violations and then concludes with a Section (2.10) on tlic Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. 

Anotlier act that lias Iiad a major impact on tlie general area of healtli, safety and accident management is tlie Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. The major tlieme of the act was to provide an importance to reduce tlie generation of wastes/pollutants/cheniicals tliat can create healtli, safety and accident management problems. Details of the act are provided later. 

Signed into law in November 1990, tlie Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 is the most important regulation regarding pollution prevention. The act establishes pollution prevention as a national objective and notes tliat ... 

The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 calls on companies to disclose and report a great deal about tlieir operations. Widespread inspections to determine compliance would be very expensive. It also would severely strain tlie govermnent s manpower. 

In the United States, several federal programmes and focused regulations that incorporate elements of green chemistry have been put into place to reduce risks. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 has clearly stated that pollution prevention at the source is the highest and most desired level of environmental protection. ... 

U.S. EPA, Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, United States Code Title 42, U.S. EPA, Washington, DC, available at http //www.epa.gov/p2/pubs/p2policy/actl990.htm, October 2006. 

The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 (PPA) requires facilities to report information about the management of TRI chemicals in wastes and efforts made to eliminate or reduce their quantities. These data on TRI have been collected annually from 1991. The data were meant to provide a basic understanding of the quantities of toxic waste handled by the industry, the methods typically used to manage them, and recent trends in these methods. 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. 

Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 makes it the national policy of the United States to reduce or eliminate the generation of waste at the source whenever feasible and directs the EPA to undertake a multimedia program of information collection, technology transfer, and financial assistance to the states to implement this policy and to promote the use of source reduction techniques. 

The implementation of the Montreal Protocol, the Clean Air Act, and the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 has resulted in increased awareness of organic solvent use in chemical processing. The advances made in the search to find green replacements for traditional solvents have been tremendous. With reference to solvent alternatives for cleaning, coatings, and chemical reaction and separation processes, the development of solvent databases and computational methods that aid in the selection and/or design of feasible or optimal environmentally benign solvent alternatives for specific applications have been discussed (Sherman et al., 1998). 

The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 propelled these regulatory issues to the forefront of process design by suggesting, the use of materials processes or practices that reduce or eliminate the creation of pollutants or waste at the source. It includes practices that reduce the use of hazardous materials, energy, water or other resources and practices that protect natural resources through conservation or more efficient use (U.S. EPA, 1990b). 

The EPA proposes to list HDI as a hazardous substance that will be required to be reported under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act for 1986 and the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. Currently, some owners and operators using HDI are required to report every year how much HDI they release into the environment. 

On November 30, 1994, EPA added HDI and 285 other chemicals to the list of toxic chemicals that are subjeet to reporting imder Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) and Section 6607 of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 (EPA 1994). Section 313 of Title III of EPCRA requires owners and operators of certain facilities that manufaeture, import, proeess, or otherwise use the chemicals on this list to report annually their release of those chemicals to any environmental media. 

The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 essentially formalized a movement that now requires that industrial companies report their progress in toxic chemical source reduction and recycling for each toxic chemical during the prior calendar year. The information collected is available to the public. 

General rules for P2 follow the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 13101-13109) and are applicable to any manufacturing activity. This act clearly identifies the waste management hierarchy, and we list them in Table 6.1 for completeness. The P2 Hierarchy specific to a chemical process is derived from this set of principles. 

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