Papers Delivered at International Conference on Cleaner Production
Beijing, China -- September 2001 -- Paper 21 of 30

Policies and Programs on Pollution Prevention in the United States

Hongyan He [1]
Civil and Environment Engineering, Stanford University, CA, USA 94305

Abstract: This paper summarizes the policies and programs on pollution prevention (P2) in the United States. It starts with the definition of pollution prevention, then briefly describes the history of P2 policy in the United States. The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, the P2 policy framework, and major P2 programs in the United States are reported. The Act prescribes the responsibility of the US EPA and relevant enterprises. The US EPA is required to set up a P2 office, P2 grants, and a P2 clearinghouse. It is also responsible to report its actions of promoting P2 and the results of those actions to the US Congress biennially. The enterprises involved with certain toxic chemicals are obligated to report their use and disposal of these chemicals. Based on the Act, the US EPA established a P2 policy framework, which includes five components: society, business, government, technologies, and products. Correspondingly, the UE EPA has set up a number of programs to address the five components in the framework and to fulfill the requirements stipulated in the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990.

Keywords: Pollution prevention, policies, programs, the United States

P2 and Cleaner Production

Pollution prevention means source reduction and other practices that reduce or eliminate the creation of pollutants through increased efficiency in the use of raw materials, energy, water, or other resources, or protection of natural resources by conservation.

Source reduction, according to the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, means any practice which

1. reduces the amount of hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant entering any waste stream or otherwise released into the environment prior to recycling, treatment, or disposal; and
2. reduces the hazards to public health and the environment associated with the release of such substances, pollutants, or contaminants. The term includes equipment or technology modifications, process or procedure modifications, reformulation or redesign of products, substitution of raw materials, and improvements in housekeeping, maintenance, training, or inventory control.

However, source reduction does not include any practice which alters the physical, chemical, or biological characteristics or the volume of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant through a process or activity which itself is not integral to and necessary for the production of a product or the providing of a service.

Cleaner production (CP), according to United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is “the continuous application of an integrated, preventive environmental strategy applied to processes, products, and services to increase eco-efficiency and reduce risks to humans and the environment.”

For production processes, cleaner production includes conserving raw materials and energy, eliminating toxic raw materials, and reducing the quantity and toxicity of all emissions and wastes before they leave a process. For products, cleaner production focuses on reducing impacts along the entire life cycle of the product, from raw materials extraction to the ultimate disposal of the products. For services, cleaner production reduces the environmental impacts of the provided service over its entire life cycle, from system design and use to the entire consumption of resources required to provide the services.

Although some countries (such as the United States) use the phrase of “pollution prevention” while other countries (for example, China and most European countries) use the phrase of “cleaner production”, there is not much difference between the meanings of these two phrases. The underlying ideas of the two phrases are similar: to incorporate pollution control into production with measures such as source control, process adjustment, and management improvement. There are many countries that have been implementing P2 or CP policies and programs for decades, such as the United States. These countries’ experiences with implementing P2 and CP are highly relevant to China.

History of P2 in USA

Twenty years ago, the only measurable aspect of pollution prevention at the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) was its waste minimization[2] activity. In the early 1980s, prevention was largely limited to a few specific facility projects, where some companies were able to identify and pick prevention’s “low-hanging fruit.”

By the late 1980s, the prevention concept had attracted and galvanized US EPA’s policy makers. P2 gained momentum with the passage of national legislation in 1990 and the implementation of a series of US EPA prevention-specific programs.

By the mid 1990s, the EPA had shifted into a third phase - greater institutionalization of prevention approaches into its mainstream activities, including regulations, permitting, technical assistance, compliance and enforcement.

Pollution Prevention Act of 1990

In 1990, through the Pollution Prevention Act, the US Congress formally established a national policy to prevent or reduce pollution at its sources whenever feasible.

The Act set up a hierarchy of pollution reduction measures in the United States:

1. P2 is the national policy that pollution should be prevented or reduced at source whenever feasible;
2. Pollution that cannot be prevented should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner, whenever feasible;
3. Pollution that cannot be prevented or recycled should be treated in an environmentally safe manner whenever feasible; and
4. The disposal or other release into the environment should be employed only as a last resort and should be conducted in an environmentally safe manner.

The Act prescribes activities the US EPA should conduct and functions it should fulfill, with regard to promoting pollution prevention within the United States. Major provisions of the Act include the followings:

1. Establishing a P2 strategy and outlining the Agency’s intent to promote source reduction and collect data on source reduction and recycling;
2. Providing matching funds for state and local P2 programs through the Pollution Prevention Incentives for States (PPIS) grant program;
3. Operating a source reduction clearinghouse (information center);
4. Reporting requirements for both enterprises and the US EPA. Enterprises required to file an annual toxic-chemical-release form shall include toxic chemical source reduction and recycling report for a preceding year. US EPA is required to provide US Congress with a report biennially, containing a detailed description of the actions taken to implement the strategy to promote source reduction and the results of such actions.

To meet the requirements of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, US EPA has established a P2 policy framework to guide its efforts, and it has also developed a series of P2 programs.

P2 Policy Framework

US EPA’s framework for pollution prevention has five components:

1) A Guiding Social Principle

US EPA’s overall objective is to promote source reduction as the core environmental ethic of society. Therefore, it has focused on educating industry and the general public to the virtues of prevention by the following actions:

2) Sustainable Business Practices

The US EPA believes that industry, through eco-efficiency, sustainable development and other movements, should play a leadership role in pollution prevention. One of its objectives is to promote pollution prevention approaches and techniques as an essential part of how businesses operate. More specifically, the EPA aims to:

• Increase partnerships with industry to advance eco-efficiency and other approaches that shift business “beyond compliance” and increase corporate environmental stewardship and private sector P2 infrastructure;
• Assist businesses to understand the full spectrum of their environmental costs, and to integrate environmental factors into their corporate cost and materials accounting and decision-making processes;
• Identify approaches and incentives to engage the larger financial sector, such as investment community, bankers, insurance underwriters, and mutual fund managers, to support prevention;
• Support government small business assistance programs that provide environmental information in a business context; and
• Utilize the rapid growth of corporate environmental management systems to promote systems to promote prevention.

3) Government Actions

In this area, the US EPA intends to integrate P2 into its regulatory and other mainstream programs. EPA has the following objectives:

• Incorporate multi-media approaches or alternatives into key EPA rules, permitting or compliance assistance activities, and through regulatory enforcement efforts;
• Target the top industrial polluters and the worst pollutants;
• Promote integration of P2 approaches in state regulatory programs through national grants;
• Improve the quality and quantity of P2 information and assistance to state and tribal P2 programs; and
• Promote P2 in new EPA’s programs.

4) Cleaner Technologies and Processes

Realized the difficulty for industry to abandon standard chemical use and production processes without preferable and reliable options, the US EPA, although with other federal government agencies, set their objective of helping companies continuously identify and apply cleaner technologies and practices. Particularly, EPA aims to

• Help industry make more informed environmental decisions about the use of alternative chemicals, processes and technologies to prevent pollution;
• Foster chemical methods that reduce or eliminate the use or generation of toxic substance during the design, manufacture and use of chemical products and process;
• Identify and reduce risks to human health and the environment from existing and future exposure to priority persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals (PBTs) in particular;
• Develop new P2 tools which increase the understanding and use of important P2 concepts, such as life-cycle assessment;
• Bring the influence of compliance and regulatory enforcement to bear on new prevention technology development and application; and
• Increase collaboration with other federal agencies, such as the Department of Energy, Commerce, and Defense, in the development and dissemination of P2 technology.

5) Safe Products

The US EPA intends to make consumers informed what chemicals are in the products and services they purchased, and the hazards associated with those chemicals. Therefore, the EPA set the following objectives to ensure safe products and services: · Make information about hazardous chemicals more widely available to the public;

• Foster P2, empower consumer choice, and improve consumer understanding of safe use, environmental, and health information on household consumer product labels;
• Provide Federal leadership through environmentally preferable procurement and other administration process, with the EPA “leading by example;” and
• Establish a foundation of Federal policy in defining environmentally preferable products for our society, with a particular emphasis on protecting children ’s health.

P2 Programs The US EPA’s P2 programs are designed to facilitate the incorporation of pollution prevention concepts and principles into the daily operation of government agencies, businesses, manufacturers, nonprofit organizations, and individuals. The EPA’s P2 programs can be divided into four categories:

1) Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT) Chemical Initiatives

The PBT Chemical Initiative is to reduce risks from and exposures to priority PBT chemicals through increased coordination among the EPA national and regional programs. The EPA is committing, through this program, to create an enduring cross-office system that will address the cross-media issues associated with priority PBT pollutants. Four elements are included in the PBT strategy:

1. Develop and implement national action plans to reduce priority PBT pollutants, utilizing the full range of EPA tools;
2. Continue to screen and select more priority PBT pollutants for actions;
3. Prevent new PBTs from entering the marketplace; and
4. Measure progress of these actions against the goals and national commitment in the US Government Performance and Results Act[3]

To make this strategy work, the US EPA outlines a number of actions. Some of the near-term actions include:

1. Preventing the introduction of new PBTs into commerce that may pose an unreasonable risk to human health, and to require testing to confirm a chemical’s PBT status;
2. Encouraging voluntary reduction of priority PBTs in hazardous waste;
3. Giving the public information on mercury emissions from utilities; and
4. Evaluating fish in U.S. water bodies for PBT contamination.

2) Green Products

The US EPA has encouraged consumers to incorporate environmental factors into their normal purchasing process and advocated labeling products according to their environmental impacts.

There are three programs conducted by the EPA: Consumer Labeling, Environmental Preferable Purchasing (EPP), and Product Stewardship. The Consumer Labeling Initiative examines ways to provide better environmental information on products to consumers. The EPP is to encourage, motive, and assist Federal agencies to include environmental concerns, along with price and performance, as a factor in their purchasing decisions. Under Product Stewardship, all participants in the product life cycle - designers, suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, users, recyclers, and disposers - share responsibility for the environmental effects of the products.

3) Business Practices

EPA has created five programs to encourage businesses to incorporate environmental concerns into their standard financial and accounting practices. These programs include:

1. Small Business Programs and Initiatives. These programs aim to streamline and coordinate technical assistance from small business development and to provide small business a voice in the EPA’s rule making process.
2. P2 Business Development and Finance. This program is to promote environmental stewardship by assessing a potential role for the financial community.
3. Voluntary Standards Network . It is comprised of over 130 representatives from each agency program office and region. It is the principal vehicle for coordinating the EPA’s input to the US Technical Advisory Group on ISO 14000 and communicating the EPA’s policies on environmental management system.
4. Environmental Accounting Project. This program aims to promote sound management accounting and capital budgeting practices which better address environmental costs.
5. Design for Environment (DfE) and Green Chemistry. Design for Environment aims to encourage the design of safer products and processes in particular industries, such as dry cleaning, screen printing and electrons. Green Chemistry is the design, manufacture, and use of environmentally benign chemical products and processes that prevent pollution and reduce environmental and human health risks.

4) P2 Grants

The US EPA sponsors three grant programs that specifically promote P2 activities. The Pollution Prevention Incentives for States (PPIS) grant program is to help develop and sustain state P2 program activities and pioneer new P2 approaches in the states. The Environmental Justice through Pollution Prevention (EJP2) grant program is to help community-based groups across the nation develop collaborative approaches to achieve environmentally justice through pollution prevention. The Pollution Prevention Information Network grant competition is to promote sharing of P2 information, training and technical assistance expertise among states.

Conclusion

The United States had developed a package of policies and programs to implement pollution prevention. The core is the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, which provides the legal foundation for the US EPA to establish the P2 policy framework and carry out its P2 programs. The Act stipulates many responsibilities of the US EPA in promoting pollution prevention, but set little obligation for manufacturers and consumers. Therefore, most P2 programs do not impose legally-binding requirements for businesses. Some P2 programs aim to provide information of pollution prevention to enterprises and consumers, for example, the Consumer Labeling Initiative; some intend to provide financial assistances to community-based and state P2 programs, such as Pollution Prevention Incentives for States Grant; while others aim to engage enterprises in voluntary actions, such as Design for Environment and Environmental Accounting projects.

However, up to now, many programs are in fledging stages, and their influences are still difficult to be identified. What is more, most of these programs are complicated programs consisted of many components, and relevant to different types of stakeholders. Only a few studies assessing the effectiveness of these programs have been done, and no final conclusion has been drawn yet. In addition, the P2 policies and programs in the United States are designed and carried out in its particular social, economic, political, and legal contexts, which are be quite different from the China’s situation. Policy makers should consider these differences if they intend to apply the approaches of promoting pollution prevention in US to China.

References

1. Browner, Carol. New Directions for Environmental Protection.” Pollution prevention policy statement, issued on July 14, 1993.
2. United Nations Environmental Programme, Industry and Environment Office. Cleaner Production: A Guide to Sources of Information. 2nd ed. Paris: UNEP, 1998.
3. ---, and United Nations Industrial Development Organization. Audit and Reduction Manual for Industrial Emission and Waste. Technical Report Series #7. UN, 1991.
4. US Congress, United States code Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare Chapter 133. Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, website: http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/p2home/p2policy/act1990.htm 
5. US EPA, Pollution Prevention, website: http://www.epa.gov 

[1] Hongyan He is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University. For further information or questions, please send email to hyhe@stanford.edu or hongyanhe@hotmail.com 

[2] According to the definition by US EPA, Waste Minimization is reducing waste at its source, before it is even generated (called source reduction) and environmentally sound recycling.

[3] The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 seeks to shift the focus of government decisionmaking and accountability away from a preoccupation with the activities that are undertaken - such as grants dispensed or inspections made - to a focus on the results of those activities, such as real gains in employability, safety, responsiveness, or program quality. Under the Act, agencies are to develop multiyear strategic plans, annual performance plans, and annual performance reports. The US General Accounting Office, http://www.gao.gov