United States	Pollution Prevention Office	May 1989
Environmental Protection	Washington, DC 20460
Agency
<&EPA Pollution
Prevention
News
Inside:
2
3
4
Reports from
EPA Offices;
TRl Data
Released
People & Places
in the News:
Dow, 3M,
Du Pont
Upcoming
Conferences
in June
Your comments and
letters are welcomel
Please write?
Pollution Prevention Office
U.S. EPA
401 M Street $W (PM-219)
Washington, DC 20460
2 Percent Pool
EPA's Administrator William K. Reilly has
announced an Agency-wide 2 percent pool of
FY 1991 extramural resources (excluding Super-
fund, construction grants, and state grants) in
order to stimulate new and creative initiatives
in pollution prevention. Agency offices are
bei ng requested to submit two-year proposals by
June 30, 1989, to compete for funds totaling
about $24 million over 2 years.
Criteria for funding the proposals include
the degree to which they target areas of greatest
risk reduction, emphasize cross-media consid-
erations, increase incentives to prevent pollu-
tion, and build on ongoing pollution preven-
tion efforts within EPA, in state agencies, and
elsewhere. The proposed projects are to supple-
ment planned pollution prevention activities
within the base programs of each program of-
fice. Final decisions on the proposals will be
made by late summer.
Natn'l Roundtable
The National Roundtable of State Waste
Reduction Programs held its ninth workshop in
Cincinnati, Ohio on April 13th and 14th.
Representatives from 28 states attended the
conference in addition to EPA staff and aca-
demic participants. The meeting focused on
the current status of state programs and recent
state legislation in Indiana, Massachusetts,
North Carolina, and Oregon. Presentations
included descriptions of innovative approaches
to pollution prevention. For example, in Ten-
nessee and several other states, retired engi-
neers are being trained to conduct pollution
prevention plant audits, utilizing their years of
experience and simultaneously augmenting the
resources available to the state program. The
roundtable also heard sum maries of the status of
federal legislation and projects currently under-
way in EPA's Pollution Prevention Office and
the Pollution Prevention Branch in ORD.
Editor's Corner
Last week at the check-out line in the super-
market, I began my usual internal debate over
paper versus plastic bags. I found myself hoping
that the perfect degradable plastic bag would
magically appear in the next four minutes so I
could have a guiltless trip home.
No such luck, but it did start me thinking
about how much pollution prevention depends
on the way we think and the way we go about our
daily business. That extends to people in indus-
try, atevery level of government, environmental
and public interest groups, and each ofusascon-
sumers and members of the general public.
On industry's side, we need engineers to start
thinking about prevention earlier on, to under-
stand that the surest method of reducing pollu-
tion is preventing pollution, through product
design, raw material use, and process changes.
We need financial officers to devise accounting
mechanisms that allow the true cost of treat-
ment or disposal to be applied against a specific
product or process. Senior corporate execu tives
need to come out with stronger, public stands
on pollution prevention, to instill a corporate
commitment at every level of their organiza-
tions.
Government regulators and legislators at the
state and federal levels need to think differently
too, to encourage prevention rather than rely-
ing on controls, to understand the need for a
stable regulatory environment without losing
the foresight and courage to push for real gains
in pollution prevention.
Environmental and public interest groups
will need to consider alternative approaches to
pollution problems that have so far proved in-
tractable to command and control policies —
approaches that involve alliances and team-
(continued on page 4)
Printed on 100% Recycled Paper

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Pollution Prevention News - 2
May 1989
Reports from i
ORD Report to Congress
EPA's Office of Research and Develop-
ment (ORD) has prepared a draft Pollution
Prevention Research Plan for submission to
Congress as required by the FY 1989 EPA
Appropriations Act. The plan identifies six
fundamental goals that will build on and
broaden the scope of existing ORD efforts:
(1)	Stimulate private sector development
and use of products that result in re-
duced pollution, such as biodegradable
polymers, dry powder coati ngs, and low-
CFC residual foam products.
(2)	Stimulate private sector development
and implementation of technologies and
processes that result in reduced pollu-
tion, for example, alternatives to sol-
vents for paint stripping, microchip
cleaning methods, and continuous feed
processes for dying fabrics.
(3)	Expand the reusability and recyclability of
wastes and pollutants and the demand
for recycled materials, by identifying
new and innovative uses for materials
that would otherwise be disposed of as
waste (such as the chemical recycling
of plastics for use in the manufacture of
insulating foams), and by investigating
options to increase capacity for use of
recyclable materials (such as new news-
print manufacturing technologies).
(4)	Identify and promote effective non-tech-
nological approaches to pollution pre-
vention, to gain a better understanding
of consumer behavior, incentives and
obstacles to pollution prevention, and
trends in consumption and use patterns
of natural resources.
(5)	Establish a research program that will
anticipate future environmental problems,
target pollution prevention opportuni-
ties, and evaluate the ongoing effec-
tiveness of the research program in
meeting changing user information
needs.
(6)	Conduct a vigorous technology transfer
and technical assistance program that
facilitates pollution prevention, through
widespread use of pollution prevention
opportunity assessments in industrial,
agricul tural, and consumer-oriental op-
era tions, an expansion in the Pollution
•PA Offices
Prevention Information Clearinghouse,
and a variety of other information ex-
change mechanisms.
For more information on the research
plan, contact Greg Ondich, (202) 382-
5747.
EPA Region 7
EPA's Region 7 office in Kansas City,
Ks., reports a number of pollution preven-
tion initiatives underway, with agricultur-
ally oriented projects a major priority. For
example, in the ongoing Big Spring Demon-
stration Project in Northeast Iowa, Region
7 is working with a number of federal, state,
and non-profit groups to examine farming
practices and the i mpact of the use of chemi-
cals on ground water. Region 7 hopes to
apply the research gathered from this pro-
ject to other farming demonstration proj-
ects in this area.
Region 7 is also undertaking a series of
outreach programs aimed at spreading the
idea of pollution prevention, including sci-
ence fairs, Earth Day and other school pro-
grams, and a speaker's bureau on pollution
prevention issues. In an ongoing effort to
involve industry, Region 7 will continue to
holdopenforumson prevention topics where
members of regulated industries are invited
to talk about their activities.
For more information on Region 7's
program.contactDonToensing, (913)236-
2800.
"We will make
pollution prevention
a hallmark of our
environmental
efforts. . .
Recycling, reuse,
reduction at the
source —
these will be our
watchwords."
— William K. Reilly,
EPA Administrator,
April 20, 1989
TRI Data Released
On April 12, EPA released the first set of
Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data collected
under the Emergency Planning and Commu-
nity Right-to-Know Act. The inventory data
show that in 1987, 9.7 billion pounds of
chemicals were released to streams and other
bodiesofwater; 1,9billion pounds were sentto
municipal wastewater-treatment plants for
processing and disposal; 2.7 billion pounds
went into the air; 2.4 billion pounds were put
into landfills, and 3.2 billion pounds were
injected into underground wells. An addi-
tional 2.6 billion pounds were sent to off-site
treatment and disposal facilities. Much of the
reportedemissionsarecurrently managed under
EPA or state regulations. The inventory also
includes accidental and unregulated releases.
Because the TRI data reflect releases of
chemicals, rather than exposures to chemi-
cals, the information cannot be used directly
to determine the extent of the health and en-
vironmental risk from these releases. Never-
theless, the information will be useful in a
variety of ways — it will permit comparisons
among industries and geographic areas; it will
help locate previously unknown sources of
toxic chemicals in the environment; it will
assist government agencies at all levels in
settingpriorities for research, monitoring, and
possible regulatory action, and it will provide
comparative trends information to help awSS
progress in reducing emissions.
The inventory results are based on over
75,000 reports submitted to EPA by some
17,500 facilities. Under the law, manufactur-
ing facilities with 10 or more employees that
produced, processed, or used certain amounts
of any of more than 300 toxic chemicals were
required to report their annual releases of
those chemicals to EPA and states by July 1,
1988 and annually thereafter.
Information from the first inventory will
be made available to the public by mid-June
through a national computerized database
housed at the National Library of Medicine
and accessible via personal computer and
modem; through computer-generated micro-
fiche data sets availableatlibrariesandfederal
depositories, and through magnetic tape and
compact disc. EPA is also preparing a Na-
tional Reporton the TRI data to be released in
mid June. For further information, contact
the toll-free Emergency Planning and Com-
munity Right-to-Know Information Hotline
at 1-800-535-0202 (in Washington, DC, call
479-2449).

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May 1989
3 - Pollution Prevention News
People and Places in the News:
Dow, 3M, Du Pont
In the chemical industry, it goes by different
names: waste reduction, waste minimization,
pollution prevention. But according to three rep-
resentatives of the chemical industry, pollution
prevention by any name takes top priority. In this
series of profiles of industry leaders, PPNspoketo
Dow, 3M, and Du Pont.
JoeLindsly, Dow Chemical U.S.A.
Dow Chemical created its WRAP program
in 1986. The Waste Reduction Always Pays
program sought to "formalize our (waste re-
duction) efforts," explains Joe Lindsly, Dow's
Waste Reduction Issues Manager. "When I
was working at a chloralkal i plant some eight
or nine years ago, it was just part of our jobs.
And even back then we did a lot of projects
that reduced waste through improved com-
puter control, plant reliability, and fugitive
emissions. But all those projects weren't
documented as waste reduction projects, like
they are now."
Formalizing Dow's waste reduction pro-
ject has had positive results, says Lindsly.
"The biggest thing we wanted to achieve was
to give individuals or teams recognition for
their waste reduction projects. It's a matter of
developing a waste reduction mentality. Ifwe
have a waste stream, the first question that
should come to our minds is "How can we
reduce that waste stream?" But.hecontinues,
"There's a lot of benefit to be gained by
showing your reductions publicly and telling
people what you're doing. It's a way to meas-
ure and track our progress so that we can show
ourselves, and show the public, that we're
making continuing improvements in waste
reduction."
One project currendy being funded by
Dow will significantly decrease the amount
of product losses being landfillcd from the
Louisiana chlorinated polyethylene plant.
Usinga more efficient dispersant in theirpro-
duction process, the plant expects todecrease
its waste by 1.8 million pounds a year; the
project will pay for itself in 9 months.
There is still a lot to do in reducing waste
within the chemical industry, says Lindsly.
"If you have a waste stream, if you have
emissions, the opportunity to reduce it is
there. If I could use an onion as an example
— once you've peeled the outer skin off, all
you're doing is exposing more opportunities,
another layer. And as you keep on peeling,
you keep on finding more and more potential
projects."
Robert P. Bringer, 3M
Pollution Prevention Pays, 3M's 3P pro-
gram, has many of the same goals. According
to Robert P. Bringer, staff vice-president of
3M Environmental Engineering and Pollu-
tion Control, most of 3M's processes are
coating processes, where a flexible substrate
like a film orpaper is coated with an adhesive,
magnetic or photographic coating. "In most
of these coatings, the active ingredient is car-
ried along in a solvent," explains Bringer.
"We coat and then we drive off the solvents
in an oven. But the basic problem is that
unlike a lot of chemical processes, die sol-
vents that we put in at oneend go through the
process and come out the other end un-
changed . The sol vent is j ust there as a ca rrier.
It's not there as a reactant."
Through the 3P program, the company is
engaged in research and development that
will change the process from using solvent
carriers to using water as a carrier, "or some-
how figuring out a way to not use a carrier at
all." Says Bringer, "For every major product
line we have that still uses solvents, we have
a major research program to eliminate their
use."
Helpi ng smaller companies cope wi th waste
reduction is also important to 3M. When the
State of Georgia adopted an environmental
opacity standard to reduce the visual impact
of stack emi ssions, a fi rm that used 3M chemi-
cals turned to 3M for help in reducing air
emissions from their fabric drying ovens.
Scientists at 3M reformulated the fabric
chemical treatment product. When it was
implemented, air pollutants at the Georgia
plant were reduced by 6 to 9 tons per year.
The company met the state standards and 3M
retained its $ 1 million annual account.
In April 1989,3M reported that since the
program's inception in 1975, over 700 Pollu-
tion Prevention Pays projects in the U.S.
have saved the company $408 million and
prevented 111,000 tons of air pollutants,
15,000 tons of water pollutants, and 388,000
tons of sludge and solid waste from being
released into the environment.
p
1 1
r *
'Mr' ~T
William B. Beck, Du Pont
Du Pont created the ReSourcc Program in
1985 to gather waste minimization data and
track waste min programs. The program's
goal is to see a 35% reduction in the amount
of waste generated per pound in all aspects of
Du Pont's production by 1990. According to
William Beck, head of the program, "we've
got approximately a 21% to 24% reduction
through 1987" with anestimated$25 million
in annual savings.
"I joined the company 34 years ago and
my first assignment was waste minimization,"
says Beck. "Our program today is the same,
meaning we're trying to make less waste by
making more product. But the emphasis has
changed from focusing on the high value or
high volume ingredient sources of waste to
being much broader and looking at all of our
waste, regardless of the value or volume."
Du Pont's waste tracking system usesEPA's
(continued on page 4)

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Pollution Prevention News - 4
May 1989
Upcoming Conferences in June

Title
Sponsor
Pate/Location
Contact
Hazmat International
Conference
Hazmat World
June 13-15, 1989
Atlantic City, NJ
John Frett
(312)469-3373
82nd Annual
Meeting &. Exhibition
Air &. Waste Management
Assn. (formerly APCA)
June 25-30, 1989
Anaheim, CA
Dan Denne
(412) 232-3444
Hazardous Waste
Minimization
W.S.O.S. Community Action
Commission, Inc. and the
Ohio Technology Transfer
Organization
June 27 - Cleveland, OH
June 28 - Toledo, OH
June 28 - Dayton, OH
June 30 - Zanesville, OH
Kathleen Bower
(419)334-8911
To list a conference, workshop,
20460, tel. (202)382-4023.
or meeting, please contact Pollution Prevention News, U.S. EPA (PM-219), Washington, D.C.
Dow, 3M, Du Pont
(continued from page 3)
RCRA guidelines as well as its own internal
standards to define hazardous waste. Like
most chemical industries, Du Pont's wastes
are largely aqueous. Recently Du Pont initi-
ated a project toclean up an oily water stream
in one of its Texas plants. Even though they
anticipated little return, the program aimed
to recover and recycle the oil as a byproduct.
But, says Beck, "the amount of oil that they
were able to recover was greater than antici-
pated. The bottom 1 ine of this example is that
we seriously underestimate the total cost of
waste, and therefore, when we do put a waste
minimization project in to minimize that
waste, we actually realize more value than we
had predicted."
But Beck acknowledges that some waste
minprojectsfacediminishingreturns. "There
are some areas in waste minimization where
there isn't goi ng to be a return or cost savings
realized that would pay for the changes and
the efforts that you're going to have to make.
The industry has to accept that. I think soci-
ety has to accept that." Beck notes that the
non-ingredient based materials usedinchemi-
cal processes like filter cartridges, molecular
sieve material, and laboratory chemicals are
perhaps the most costly to recycle or reuse.
Tocounterdiminishingreturns, Du Pont's
ReSource Program takes a broader view.
Editor's Corner
(continued from page I)
work, rather than confrontation.
And as householders and consumers, we
all need to think more clearly about our
personal responsibility for preventing pollu-
tion. We can no longer drink from styro-
foam cups, live in air conditioned homes,
drive low mileage cars, and then wonder
where the dangers of ozone depletion and
global warming are coming from. Our
choices and behavior as consumers have
direct consequences on the environment.
The products we buy, the packaging we
"We're looking at the opportunities today,"
explains Beck, "butfrankly, we recognize that
if significant cost savings are going to be real-
ized, we've got to look more towards the
future. I believe that the waste minimization
progress of the 1990s and beyond will have
to start in our research laboratories and in
the minds of our engineers and scientists
today."
insist on, the choice of paper or plastic at the
supermarket, how low we set the thermostat,
and an infinity of other ordinary day-to-day
decisions all have cumulative and lasting
effects.
Not only do these acts have consequences
in themselves, but they also send important
messages to industry and government about
our sense of priorities and how seriously we
take this business of maintaining a livable
environment.
In this, we all have a role to play.
United States Environmental
Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20460
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