Pollution Prevention Case Studies Compendium

Abstract

The Pollution Prevention Research Program encourages the development and adoption of processing technologies and products in the United States that will lead to reducing the aggregate generation rates for pollutants entering the various environmental media. It includes projects to improve the understanding of environmental problems that might be amenable to pollution prevention approaches, and projects that demonstrate innovative pollution prevention approaches and technologies. Pollution Prevention Research supports studies and research and demonstration projects that are designed to further the utilization of source reduction and to a lesser degree recycling as preferable environmental improvement strategies. Projects within the program are supported through in-house activities, contracts with outside organizations, and cooperative agreements with universities and other government agencies. The Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory (RREL) serves as the lead organization within the EPA's Office of Research and Development for research related to pollution prevention. Spearheading pollution prevention research within RREL is the Pollution Prevention Research Branch (PPRB) of the Waste Minimization Destruction and Disposal Research Division. Efforts cover all sectors identified in EPA's Pollution Prevention Strategy (January, 1991), i.e., manufacturing, agriculture, energy and transportation, municipal water and wastewater, federal facilities and municipal solid waste. The program also contains a technology transfer element for incorporating results from other's research and for disseminating the results of the program's efforts. As a major part of the effort to disseminate the results of its research, PPRB has produced this compilation of case studies. These studies are the culmination of some of the major current research efforts being conducted in the area of pollution prevention. It is a compilation of summaries of pollution prevention demonstrations, assessment and research projects conducted within the Branch. We hope that this compendium will facilitate the development and adoption of pollution prevention techniques throughout the United States and other countries.