Pollution prevention frameworks

EPA Pollution Prevention Framework Web site, www.epa.gov/oppt/p2framework/. 

General topics are pollution prevention framework, tools for integrating pollution prevention, pollution prevention partnerships, and resources. Specific topics Include federal Impacts on state and local efforts, inspection programs and facility permits, enforcement, training programs, and regional partnerships. 

Although this approach enables companies to comply with legislation, and harmful emissions will be prevented from entering the environment, it does not provide the best framework for sustainable development. A much better approach would be to develop legislation that encourages pollution prevention at source. In this respect, the old prescriptive approach has something to offer however, it is generally accepted that with the number of diverse operations we have today this would be unworkable. 

Within the broad framework of sustainable development, we should strive to maximize resource efficiency through activities such as energy and nonrenewable resource conservation, risk minimization, pollution prevention, minimization of waste at all stages of a product life-cycle, and the development of products that are durable and can be re-used and recycled. Sustainable chemistry strives to accomplish these ends through the design, manufacture and use of efficient and effective, more environmentally benign chemical products and processes". 

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. 

U S Environmental Protection Agency (2005) Pollution Prevention (P2) Framework Manual, US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC. Anastas, P. and Warner, J. (1998) Green Chemistry Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press, New York. 

In the United States, companies are required to submit premanufacture notice to the U.S. EPA prior to introducing new chemicals to commerce. To encourage the application of pollution prevention principles and the development of inherently low hazard new chemicals, the U.S. EPA has instituted a pollution prevention (P2) framework as part of its Sustainable Futures program (U.S. EPA, 2004c). As part of the program, training and support are provided to companies in the evaluation of new chemicals, with limited available information, using the U.S. EPA s hazard... 

U.S. EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), Pollution Prevention (P2) Framework, 2004c. Available at http //www.epa.gov/oppt/p2framework/ (accessed October 2004). 

The previous section described how the flows of individual materials can be tracked from their initial acquisition to their final disposition in a product or a waste stream. Even relatively simple materials generally have a multitude of uses, which creates interesting opportunities for recycling. While the identification of such pollution prevention opportunities is most readily done by tracking individual materials, an alternative approach that is gaining considerable popularity considers an individual product and maps the flows of energy and raw materials that were required to create the product. These studies, commonly referred to as life cycles analyses, follow a basic framework, which is summarized in Fig. 12. 

US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics. 2005. Pollution Prevention (P2J framework (http //www.epa.gov/opptintr/newchems/pubs/sustainable/p2frame-june05a2.pdf— accessed February 12,2007). 

To provide a framework for clean manufacturing methods, this section will define important basic concepts. Interestingly, many of the concepts, such as recycling, are defined differently by government, societal, industrial, and academic entities (Allen and Rosselot 1997). Other terms are used interchangeably for example, pollution prevention is often defined as source reduction. 

In Europe there is already legislation controlling solvent emissions in many countries. The EU is also working on a draft legislative framework - the Directive on the Limitation of the Emission of Organic Compounds Due to the Use of Organic Solvents in Certain Processes and Industrial Installations. As currently drafted, this Directive is based on the principles of BAT it will operate under Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) principles and require that any mechanism to reduce VOC emissions should be ... 

Within the UK, environmental protection is embodied in overarching statutes, e.g., the Environmental Protection Acts of 1990 and 1995, which require both an integrated approach, as embodied in the European Community Water Framework Directive, and a precautionary approach, as embodied in the 1999 Pollution Prevention and Control Act. Statutes are supported by Government Circulars and statements of policy, codes of practice, and orders and policies from agencies such as the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive. 

A life-cycle assessment (LCA) chronicles the life of a commercial product from manufacture to disposal ( cradle to grave ) in order to estimate its true cost and, at the same time, to discover how the product s life cycle might be modified to increase profitability within the framework of existing laws and regulations. The familiar admonitions to reduce, reuse, recycle seek to apply LCA concepts to both ends of products life cycles by minimizing both inputs of natural resources and the amounts of waste products. When applied to toxic chemicals, an LCA examines the quantities of toxics used in manufacturing a product, the exposure of workers who make the product and of consumers who use it, and the environmental fate and transport of toxic chemicals after the product is disposed of. Pollution prevention is based on the life-cycle-assessment approach and has been embraced by many governments. 

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