API Publ 331:1994 pdf download.Environmental Performance Indicators: Methods for Measuring Pollution Prevention
Pollution prevention has become the preferred option for dealing with residual materials and wastes. Under a pollution prevention scenario, if a waste is reduced or eliminated at the source or recycled, it requires no further management and will not pose a threat to human health or the environment. In addition, future liability for potential cleanup from waste treatment and disposal is eliminated. Despite its broad use, pollution prevention is a term with no uniformly accepted definition. It is usually defined in terms of the environmental management hierarchy (sometimes known as the waste management hierarchy) — source reduction, recycling, treatment, and disposal — but there is disagreement over which elements of the hierarchy it spans. Some see pollution prevention exclusively as source reduction or more strictly, product substitution or toxics use reduction, whereas others are willing to include some types of recycling. Few are willing to include treatment. Pollution prevention should be viewed as a dynamic process that includes the idea of continuous improvement, such as movement up the environmental management hierarchy. EPA Administrator Carol Browner endorsed this hierarchical approach to reducing risk in her Pollution Prevention Policy Statement of June 15, 1993: [Plollution prevention is not the only strategy for reducing risk but it is the preferred – one. Environmentally sound recycling shares many of the advantages of prevention–it can reduce the need for treatment and disposal, and conserve energy and natural resources. Where prevention or recycling are not feasible, treatment followed by safe disposal as a last resort will play an important role in achieving environmental goals. API’s definition also recognizes the need for a complementary set of strategies, referencing the principies of waste minimization (from the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984)
The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), compiled under section 3 13 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right To Know Act (EPCRA), also known as Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA), is frequently cited as a tool for assessing progress towards pollution prevention. Although it was not developed specifically for this purpose, it is the only database that is multi-media in its scope and organization. The TRI documents the annual releases of some 300 chemicals and chemical categories as reported by the manufacturing sector. Beginning in 1992, facilities that report under the TRI are required to report on an expanded set of elements that include the quantities of chemicals entering residual streams prior to any recycling, treatment, or disposal. The Pollution Prevention Task Force of the American Petroleum Institute initiated this project with the primary purpose of identifiing other methods of measuring progress towards pollution prevention. This was born out of recognition that when new measurements like the TRI are established, considerable care must be exerted to assure that the appropriate aspects of an operation are subjected to scrutiny. Are the right things being measured? Are all the right things being considered? Is there an appropriate target performance level?
API Publ 331:1994 pdf download
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