Pollution Prevention and Waste Minimization

Pollution prevention offers industry an opportunity, but its exact cost, benefits, and risks are difficult to fully identify or quantify. Pollution prevention represents a significant change in the scope and methodology usually used in waste management. It is a multimedia approach that concentrates on preventing the production of waste in any form in all parts of the plant. 

Waste minimization was first introduced as a national policy in the 1984 Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA) to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The EPA elaborated on the concept in its 1986 Report to Congress.  

The general proposition is this By practicing pollution prevention, industry can obtain improved environmental protection and increased industrial efficiency, profitability, and competitiveness. Preventing pollution at its source, through modifications in manufacturing processes or product design, is a goal. 

There are numerous examples of successful waste-reduction initiatives and some impressive data, usually on a waste stream or plant basis. However, no comprehensive company, industry, or national data thus far available demonstrate broad success at cutting industrial-waste generation. Enormous amounts of wastes, pollutants, and discharges still continue to be generated. 

It is not a matter of merely choosing between the traditional end-of-pipe treatment or pollution prevention. Preventing pollution is like preventing disease by changing eating habits and lifestyle pollution control is like using medicine and surgery to minimize ill effects. 

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Reinhardt, R.A. (ed.) et al. (1996) Pollution Prevention and Waste Minimization in Laboratories, Lewis Publishing. 

Sludge or solid waste is unavoidably produced in the treatment of water containing suspended solids. There are, however different technologies that we can select among that will indeed concentrate these solids, and thereby reduce the volumes that we ultimately must dispose of. In addition, some sludge can be stabilized and treated, which can impart a low, but none-the-less marketable value to this waste. These technologies and practices do indeed constitute pollution prevention and waste minimization programs within water treatment plant operations, and they can... 

Since the late 1980s, several developed countries have made major public sector commitments to build awareness of cleaner production, also referred to as pollution prevention and waste minimization. These commitments, most notably in Denmark, the Netherlands, the U.K. and the U.S., have led the private sector to investigate and implement pollution prevention measures for existing processes and products. As a result, cleaner production is now seen in these countries as a potentially cost-effective complement to pollution abatement in meeting environmental standards. 

The CAA compliance deadline may cause companies to install simple end-of-pipe emissions controls, instead of pollution prevention process changes. In order to limit this practice and encourage waste minimization, U.S. EPA allows owners and operators of combustion facilities to request a one-year extension to the compliance period in cases where additional time is needed to install pollution prevention and waste minimization measures that reduce the amount of hazardous waste entering combustion feedstreams.16 Requests for a one-year extension must reasonably document that the waste minimization measures could not be installed in time to meet the three-year compliance period. Decisions to grant the extensions will be made by U.S. EPA or authorized state programs. 

Armour, M.A., Disposal methods for some known or suspect chemical carcinogens, in Recent Advances of Chemistry and Molecular Biology in Cancer Research, Dai, Q., Armour, M.A., and Zheng, Q., Eds., Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1993, p. 315 Armour, M.A., Chemical treatment methods to minimize waste, in Pollution Prevention and Waste Minimization in Laboratories, Reinhardt, P.A. et al., Eds., Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL, 1995, p. 283. 

Armour, M.A., Laboratory methods for disposal of toxic inorganic and organic chemicals, in Pollution Prevention and Waste Minimization in Laboratories, Reinhardt, P.A. et al., Eds., Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, FL, 1995, p. 103. 

The section is adopted from the Ohio Pollution Prevention and Waste Minimization Planning Guidance Manual.f ... 

Terms closely related to cleaner production are pollution prevention and waste minimization, which emphasize the preventive aspect of cleaner production. Closely associated with cleaner production is the hierarchy of waste treatment strategies, enunciated in the U.S. 1990 Pollution Prevention Act. Environmental agencies in most countries have adopted this hierarchical approach in their policies. Waste treatment strategies, in order of preference, are... 

A. Elkamel, Preface of Special Issue on Pollution Prevention and Waste Minimization via Simulation and Optimization, International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2006. 

Does the process satisfy the principals of pollution prevention and waste minimization ... 

Does the process satisfy the principles of pollution prevention and waste minimization On the basis of the information provided by the vendor, scrubbed gases and solids are the only wastes produced other than arsenic. On the basis of the information provided by the vendor, scrubbed gases and metal are the only wastes produced other than arsenic. Yes. Wastes are metal, scrubbed offgases, arsenic residues, and contaminated filter media. The process satisfies the principles of pollution prevention. Although the process results in a large amount, relatively speaking, of secondary wastes, the amount is not excessive. 

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