Waste minimization discharges

Although the EPAs policy does not consider recycling or treatment as actual pollution prevention methods per se, these methods present an opportunity to reduce the amount of waste that might otheiwise be discharged into the environment. Clearly, the definition of pollution prevention and its synonyms (e.g., waste minimization) must be understood to fully appreciate and apply these techniques. 

You should use the material balance information to identify the major sources of waste and pollution, to look for deviations from the norm in waste production, to identify areas of unexplained losses, and to pinpoint operations that contribute to flows that exceed national-, local-, or site-discharge regulations. Also, a good thing to remember is that, from a practical standpoint, process ciency is synonymous with waste minimization. 

The terms of zero emission, zero discharge, cleaner production, waste minimization, pollution prevention, design for environment, material substitution, and dematerialization are all closely related, and each is self-explanatory. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and other national and international organizations at different periods of time have promoted each [8,19,23,30-34,39-46]. 

The production of synthetic liquid hydrocarbons from natural gas has a low environmental impact. All waste water leaving the complex would first be treated to allow discharge into a river. As a general principle, the re-use of process water and condensate would be designed to minimize discharge of waste water. The only non-solid effluents would be clean water produced in the process and sulphur-free flue gases. As for solid waste, spent catalyst can conceivably be returned to the catalyst manufacturer for metals recovery. 

In the discussion of atmospheric and aqueous discharges, the underlying principles of waste minimization, in terms of volume reduction, includes recycling, and treatment. This leads to the removal or minimization of hazards from effluents and results in the production of a solid residue. This must be disposed of along with any other solid material produced on site. 

Ecology is an inter-disciplinary branch of biology that provides study of relationships between organisms and their environment. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this comes in the area of water reuse or recirculating aquaculture systems. These systems have become attractive because of their minimal discharge of waste material and use the same water many times over, adding more only periodically. They are often used when water must be heated or cooled. In these, the waste products from the animals... 

FIGURE 16.9 Chemical manufacturing process from the viewpoint of discharges and waste minimization. 

The Oil Pollution Act of 1961 was primarily concerned witli tlie regulation of the deliberate discharge of oil or oil wastes into Uie water. As a result of Uiis act, Uie owners of transport sliips were to take precautions to minimize Ute effect of pollution. Oily ballast water separators were required on ships, and owners Imd to maintain oil record books. Violators of Uie Oil Pollution Act were subject to fines of not more than 1,000 for improper record keeping. 

Before any stream can be discharged into a lake or river, it must be at a pH between 6.5 and 8.5. Even if this were not a requirement there would be at least two reasons to neutralize the waste. The first is to minimize corrosion and the use of expensive construction materials in future treatment operations. The second is to... 

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