Waste minimization priority chemicals

Under the conditions of the 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Environmental Protection Agency focuses its efforts in dealing with hazardous wastes on 30 hazardous chemicals of special importance. Those chemicals are called waste minimization priority chemicals (WMPC). The list of WMPC, shown in the chart on page 160, changes over time, reflecting success in reducing the amount of one or another chemical in the environment, the ability to remove that chemical from the list, and the replacement of that chemical by another of environmental importance. 

The EPA prepares a biennial report on its list of waste minimization priority chemicals. This report summarizes the quantities of each chemical produced and the states in which the largest quantities of each chemical are produced, the major sources, the methods of disposal used, and other important data about the listed substances. The most recent biennial report, which covers the years from 1991 to 2001, was published in February 2004. 

And dioxins are by no means unique in regard to the risks that humans and other animals face as a result of chemical manufacturing operations. Indeed, one only need to look again at chart of Waste Minimization Priority Chemicals (WMPC) in chapter 5 to be reminded of the very large number of hazardous chemicals that have become a normal part of the environment today. 

The EPA National Waste Minimization Program has designated 31 Priority Chemicals that... 

Life cycle assessment involves an inventory analysis to provide information about the consumption of material and release of wastes from the point that raw material is obtained to make a product to the time of its ultimate fate, an impact analysis to consider the environmental and other impacts of the product, and an improvement analysis to determine the measures that can be taken to reduce impacts. A life cycle assessment gives a high priority to the choice of materials in a way that minimizes wastes. It considers which materials and whole components can be used or recycled. And it considers alternate pathways for manufacturing processes or, in the case of chemical manufacture, alternate synthesis routes. 

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