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WHAT CAN YOU
SAVE TODAY
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RESOURCE CONSERVATION
CHALLENGE
National Partnership
For Environmental
Priorities
The National Partnership for Environmental Priorities (NPEP) is a volun-
tary program that fosters partnerships among the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), state regulatory agencies, manufacturers,
commercial companies, and federal facilities to reduce the use and/or
release of 31 priority chemicals.
Challenge to Industry
EPA is challenging industry to reduce the presence of 31 priority chemicals by 10
percent by 2008. Reducing the release of these chemicals in all life-cycle stages
is a primary goal of the Agency's Resource Conservation Challenge (RCC). These
chemicals are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic. They contaminate the air,
water, land, plants, and animals. They are among the most toxic materials on
EPA's hazardous waste list. They include such things as dibenzofuran,
dioxins/furans, pentachlorobenzene, pyrene, lead, cadmium, and mercury.
Reducing these 31 priority chemicals will better protect human health and the
environment and conserve natural resources.
The NPEP program works through voluntary partnerships that target priority and
other chemicals of national concern. Partnership goals are to find solutions that
eliminate or substantially reduce the use of these materials during all stages of the
production process, or to recover or recycle those chemicals that cannot easily be
eliminated or reduced at the source.
Current partners span many industries. NPEP partners pledge to reduce specific
amounts of the 31 priority chemicals and many have made dramatic reductions.
Partners receive public recognition from EPA for these reductions and environmen-
tal achievements.
Tracking Progress
While industrial use of the 31 priority chemicals has significantly declined over the
last 25 years, release of these chemicals into the environment still remains a prob-
lem. EPA's annual Waste Minimization Trends Report describes the decline in
generation, as well as current management and disposal trends. The report uses
data collected through the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) from 1991 through 2000
and identifies chemical volumes most likely to be associated with waste genera-
tion.
Recycled/Recyclable. Printed with vegetable oil based inks on 100% (minimum 50% postconsumer) recycled paper.
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TRI data show a 47 percent reduction in disposal of 20 of the 31 priority chemicals,
from an estimated 147 million pounds in 1991 to an estimated 69 million pounds in
2000—a decline of about 63 million pounds. Some of the industries showing more
dramatic reductions were inorganic chemical manufacturing, battery manufacturing,
and chloralkali manufacturing. EPA is enlisting industries that produce the highest vol-
umes of the 31 priority chemicals to accept the challenge and join the National
Partnership for Environmental Priorities. Metal smelters and refiners, steel mills and
blast furnaces, glass and glassware manufacturers, and petroleum refiners are exam-
ples of current NPEP partners.
National
Partnership
for
Environmental
Priorities
Far More Information
For more information on the National Partnership
for Environmental Priorities or the Waste
Minimization Trends Report, visit
. For more on the Resource
Conservation Challenge, visit
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