The 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 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. 

The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 is tlie most important regulation regarding pollution prevention. The 1990 act establishes tlie pollution prevention liierarchy as national policy, declaring tliat pollution should be prevented or reduced at tlie source wherever feasible, while pollution tliat cannot be prevented should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner. 

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. ... 

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. 

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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