Waste prevention

To express that it is not just the amount of waste but rather its environmental impact, Sheldon introduced the environmental quotient EQ as the E factor multiplied by an unfriendliness quotient, Q, which can be assigned a value to indicate how undesirable a byproduct is. For example, Q = 0 for clean water, 1 for a benign salt, NaCl, and 100-1000 for toxic compounds. Evidently, catalytic routes that avoid waste formation are highly desirable, and the more economic value that is placed on, for example, the unfriendliness quotient, the higher the motivation to work on catalytic alternatives. Waste prevention is much to be preferred over waste remediation. 

Clinton, W.J. (1998) Executive Order 1310 IGreening the Government through Waste Prevention, Recycling, and Federal Acquisition. Federal Register, 63(179), 49643-49651. 

Industrial scientists, therefore, hold a very high public trust. There is a need to go beyond the requirements of scientific canons and demonstrate to the lay public that its trust has been upheld. A number of industrial firms have recognized and responded to this need. Wilder, of Eastman Chemical, for example, describes a proactive pollution prevention policy developed in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency.112 This work describes the key role of analytics in helping chemical manufacturers take leadership roles in redesigning processes for waste prevention. Since the analytical laboratory is a principal referee in the production process, there is always a risk that time pressures will tempt some members of the production team to "work the referee". An important function of the chain of command of the analytical laboratory, therefore, is establishing a clear operational policy to ensure that any such pressure does not reach the bench level ... 

Dautzenberg, A. and Groene, T., Waste Prevention in SMEs From Desire to Company Practice, Milieu, 1993, pp. 87-91. 

According to UNEP (2010), waste prevention and materials recovery are the key activities, by which the waste sector can significantly contribute to GHG mitigation. 

Waste prevention and environmental protection are major requirements in an overcrowded world of increasing demands. Synthetic chemistry continues to develop various techniques for obtaining better products with less environmental impact. One of the more promising approaches is solvent-free organic synthesis this book of Koichi Tanaka collects recent examples in this field in a concise way so that their performance and merits can be easily judged. This endeavor is very welcome, as most recent syntheses and educational textbooks largely neglect solvent-free techniques. 

The main driving force towards recycling has been national and international plastic waste management policy. Within the EU, the policy is based on waste hierarchy, meaning that the first choice is waste prevention and then waste recovery (reuse, recycling and energy recovery), with preference to material recovery. Thus the type of legislation found is ... 

Waste Prevention Use only the required amount of reagent excess material cannot be returned to reagent jar it is waste. ... 

Mandatory national waste prevention programmes, which take account of the variety of national, regional and local conditions, to be finalised three years after entry into force of the directive ... 

Waste prevention (or reduction) involves both (upstream) alterations in product design as well as in consumer habits (downstream). Such strategies assure that the two objectives of (quantity) less waste produced and (quality) less hazardous constituents utilized in production (so that less hazardous wastes is generated) are both met. Waste prevention is a strategy that prevents waste and its associated risks from being produced in the first place. 

Waste prevention and management are ways to tackle all these problems at the waste sovirce either during its production or at the end-pipe treatment. By practicing prevention, industries can help in achieving good environmental protection and at the same time increasing its... 

Option 3. Direct Addition of Lime to the Pile. Direct addition of hydrated lime Ca(0H)2 to the pile has the same effect as Option 10, to be discussed later. Los Alamos leaching studies have shown that as little as 5% lime added to finely divided waste prevents acid formation and dissolution of metal ions. However, there is some question about the uniformity of dispersion and about directly adding solid powdered lime to the pile at the time the waste is spread and bulldozed. Field experiments are required to prove this technology. Until the minimum effective dosage is demonstrated in the field, a conservative figure of 25% of the lime theoretically required to neutralize the total sulfuric acid has been used in the cost calculations. 

Ciantar, C. Hadfield, M. Howarth, G. Case studies to assist integrating waste prevention in product design. MechE Conference Transactions Engineering for Profit from Waste 2001, 9, 201-210. 

R. Lilienfeld, A Study of Packaging Efficiency as It Relates to Waste Prevention, The Cygnus Group, Ann Arbor MI, March 1995. 

This aspect overlaps with some previous ones, in that the various effects of solvent, waste prevention, selectivity etc., cannot be separated out into discrete categories. The three main points are listed below ... 

Waste prevention is better than treatment or clean-up... 

S. Malkin, National Environmental Technology for Waste Prevention Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 1997. 

The hierarchy of waste management techniques has prevention as the most desirable option ahead of minimisation, recycling and, as the least desirable option, disposal. The term cleaner production embraces principles and goals that fall comfortably within the waste prevention-minimisation range. It has been described within the United Nations Environmental Programme as ... 

Waste Advantage, Inc., Industrial Waste Prevention. Waste Advantage, Inc., Southfield, MI, 1988. 

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