Pollution Prevention

Louis Theodore

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781000448405
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Environmental Management
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Engineering and science professionals have studied the management of hazardous and toxic wastes extensively, and it is clear that the principal option of the future will be waste minimization, or pollution prevention. At present, however, few practicing professionals have a working understanding of this approach, educators are just starting to teach course material in this field, and students are only beginning to receive the training necessary to implement pollution prevention in their future work environment. An applications-oriented workbook of more than 100 exercises, Pollution Prevention: Problems and Solutions covers a variety of topics closely relevant to this field. The workbook is the result of a National Science Foundation College Faculty Workshop designed to generate new ideas and innovative educative approaches in the emerging, interdisciplinary field of pollution prevention. Contents include a pollution prevention overview in addition to problems and solutions organized into the categories of basic concepts, pollution prevention principles, regulations, source reduction, recycling, treatment, chemical plant/domestic applications, case studies, and ethics. Readership: Academics and students of undergraduate or graduate courses on waste management, as well as decision makers and practising professionals in the pollution prevention industry.

CHAPTER 1: POLLUTION PREVENTION OVERVIEW

by

Brent Wainwright & Louis Theodore

INTRODUCTION

The amount of waste generated in the United States has reached staggering proportions; according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 250 million tons of solid waste alone are generated annually. Although both the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Hazardous and Solid Waste Act (HSWA) encourage businesses to minimize the wastes they generate, the majority of our current environmental protection efforts are centered around treatment and pollution clean-up.

The passage of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 has redirected industry’s approach to environmental management; pollution prevention has now become the environmental option of this decade and the 21st century. Whereas typical waste management strategies concentrate on “end-of-pipe” pollution control, pollution prevention attempts to handle waste at the source (i.e., source reduction). As waste handling and disposal costs increase, the application of pollution prevention measures is becoming more attractive than ever before. Industry is currently exploring the advantages of multimedia waste reduction and developing agendas to strengthen environmental design while lessening production costs.

There are profound opportunities for both the individual and industry to prevent the generation of waste; indeed, pollution prevention is today primarily stimulated by economics, legislation, liability concerns, and the enhanced environmental benefit of managing waste at the source. The EPA’s Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 has established pollution prevention as a national policy declaring “waste should be prevented or reduced at the source wherever feasible, while pollution that cannot be prevented should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner” (U.S. EPA, 1991a). The EPA’s policy establishes the following hierarchy of waste management:

1. 1. Source Reduction; 2. Recycling/Reuse; 3. Treatment; 4. Ultimate Disposal

The hierarchy’s categories are prioritized so as to promote the examination of each individual alternative prior to the investigation of subsequent options (i.e., the most preferable alternative should be thoroughly evaluated before consideration is given to a less accepted option.) Practices which decrease, avoid, or eliminate the generation of waste are considered source reduction and can include the implementation of procedures as simple and economical as good house-keeping. Recycling is the use, reuse or reclamation of wastes and/or materials which may involve the incorporation of waste recovery techniques (e.g., distillation, filtration). Recycling can be performed at the facility (i.e., on-site) or at an off-site reclamation facility. Treatment involves the destruction or detoxification of wastes into nontoxic or less toxic materials by chemical, biological or physical methods, or any combination of these control methods. Disposal has been included in the hierarchy because it is recognized that residual wastes will exist; the EPA’s so called “ultimate disposal” options include land-filling, land farming, ocean dumping and deep-well injection. However, the term “ultimate disposal” is a misnomer, but is included here because of its adoptation by the EPA. Table I provides a rough timetable demonstrating our national approach to waste management. Note how waste management has begun to shift from pollution control to pollution prevention.

TABLE I - Waste Management Timetable

Prior to 1945	No Control
1945 - 1960	Little Control
1960 - 1970	Some Control
1970 - 1975	Greater Control (EPA Founded)
1975 - 1980	More Sophisticated Control
1980 - 1985	Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT)
1985 - 1990	Best Available Control Technology (BACT)
1990 - 1995	Pollution Prevention Act Lowest Achievable Emission Rate (LAER) Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT)
>1995	???

The development of waste management practices in the United States has recently moved toward securing a new pollution prevention ethic. The performance of pollution prevention assessments and their subsequent implementation will encourage increased research into methods that will further aid in the reduction of hazardous wastes.

One of the most important and propitious consequences of the pollution prevention movement will be the development of standardized life-cycle cost accounting procedures. “Life-cycle” is a perspective which considers the true costs of product production and/or services provided and utilized by analyzing the price associated with potential environmental degradation and energy consumption, as well as more customary costs like capital expenditure and operating expenses.

The remainder of this text will be concerned with providing the reader with the necessary background to understand the meaning of pollution prevention and its useful implementation. Assessment procedures and the economic benefits derived from managing pollution at the source are discussed along with methods of cost-accounting for pollution prevention. Additionally, regulatory and non-regulatory methods to promote pollution prevention and overcome barriers are examined, and ethical considerations presented. By eliminating waste at the source, we can all participate in the protection of our environment by reducing the amount of waste material that would otherwise need to be treated or ultimately disposed; accordingly, attention is also given to pollution prevention in both the domestic and business office environments.

POLLUTION PREVENTION HIERARCHY

As discussed in the Introduction, the hierarchy set forth by the USEPA in the Pollution Prevention Act establishes an order to which waste management activities should be employed to reduce the quantity of waste generated. The preferred method is source reduction, as indicated in Figure 1. This approach actually precedes traditional waste management by addressing the source of the problem prior to its occurrence.

Although the EPA’s 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 otherwise 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.

Figure 1. Pollution prevention hierarchy (U.S. EPA, 1991a).

Waste minimization generally considers all of the methods in the EPA hierarchy (except for disposal) appropriate to reduce the volume or quantity of waste requiring disposal (i.e., source reduction). The definition of source reduction as applied in the Pollution Prevention Act, however, is “any practice which reduces the amount of any hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant entering any waste stream or otherwise released into the environment…prior to recycling, treatment or disposal” (U.S. EPA, 1991a). Source reduction reduces the amount of waste generated; it is therefore considered true pollution prevention and has the highest priority in the EPA hierarchy.

Recycling (reuse, reclamation) refers to the use or reuse of materials that would otherwise be disposed of or treated as a waste product. Wastes that cannot be directly reused may often be recovered on-site through methods such as distillation. When on-site recovery or reuse is not feasible due to quality specifications or the inability to perform recovery on-site, off-site recovery at a permitted commercial recovery facility is often a possibility. Such management techniques are considered secondary to source reduction and should only be used when pollution cannot be prevented.

The treatment of waste is the third element of the hierarchy and should be utilized only in the absence of feasible source reduction or recycling opportunities. Waste treatment involves the use of chemical, biological, or physical processes to reduce or eliminate waste material. The incineration of wastes is included in this category and is considered “preferable to other treatment methods (i.e., chemical, biological, and physical) because incineration can permanently destroy the hazardous components in waste materials” (Theodore and McGuinn, 1992).

Of course, many of these elements are used by industry in combination to achieve the greatest waste reduction. Residual wastes which cannot be prevented or otherwise managed are then disposed of only as a last resort.

Figure 2 provides a schematic representation of the two preferred pollution prevention techniques (i.e., source reduction and recycling).

MULTIMEDIA ANALYSIS AND LIFE CYCLE COST ANALYSIS

Multimedia Analysis

In order to properly design and then implement a pollution prevention program, sources of all wastes must be fully understood and evaluated. A multimedia analysis involves a multifaceted approach. It must not only consider one waste stream but all potentially contaminant media (e.g., air, water, land). Our past waste management practices have been concerned primarily with treatment. All too often, such methods solve one waste problem by transferring a contaminant from one medium to another (e.g., air-stripping); such waste shifting is not pollution prevention or waste reduction.

Pollution prevention techniques must be evaluated through a thorough consideration of all media, hence the term “multimedia”. This approach is a clear departure from previous pollution treatment or control techniques where it was acceptable to transfer a pollutant from one source to another in order to solve a waste problem. Such strategies merely provide short-term solutions to an ever increasing problem. As an example, air pollution control equipment prevents or reduces the discharge of waste into the air but at the same time can produce a solid hazardous waste problem.

Figure 2. Pollution prevention techniques.

Life-Cycle Analysis

The aforementioned multimedia approach to evaluating a product’s waste stream(s) aims to ensure that the treatment of one waste stream does not result in the generation or increase of an additional waste output. Clearly, impacts resulting during the production of a product must be evaluated over its entire history or “life-cycle.”

A life-cycle analysis, or “Total Systems Approach,” (Theodore, 1993) is crucial to identifying opportunities for improvement. This type of evaluation identifies “energy use, material inputs, and wastes generated during a product’s life: from extraction and processing of raw materials, to manufacture and transport of a product to the marketplace, and, finally, to use and dispose of the product” (World Wildlife Fund, 1991).

During a forum convened by the World Wildlife Fund and the Conservation Foundation in May 1990, various steering committees recommended that a three-part life-cycle model be adopted. This model consists of the following:

1. • An inventory of materials and energy used, and environmental releases from all stages in the life of a product or process;
2. • An analysis of potential environmental effects related to energy use and material resources and environmental releases; and,
3. • An analysis of the changes needed to bring about environmental improvements for the product or process under evaluation.

Traditional cost analyses often fail to include factors relevant to future damage claims resulting from litigation, the depletion of natural resources, the effects of energy use, etc. As such, waste management options such as treatment and disposal may appear preferent...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Contributors
• 1. Pollution Prevention Overview
• 2. Pollution Prevention Problems
• 3. Pollution Prevention Solutions
• Index