Environmental Management

Hazardous Waste Management BEP has put together a variety of fact sheets to assist businesses have a better understanding o the various regulations that may impact your business. Learn more. Click Here	Biennial Hazardous Waste These reports details the type and amount of hazardous waste that was generated onsite, shipped off-site and/or received from off-site. Learn More. Click Here	Nevada ERP for Dry Cleaners The Environmental Results Program (ERP) was a pilot program intended to demonstrate a new application of developing and implementing an ERP and in multi-agency collaboration to address improvement of environmental regulation and environmental performance of the dry cleaners business sector.

Helpful Links The Business Environmental Program has an extensive list of links and resources view our list of helpful links now. Click Here	F. A. Q. There exists a lot of questions about the services the Business Environmental Program offers view here the FAQ. Click Here	Sustainable Living A webinar designed for helping the private and public sector “go green” for the benefit of all.

• Did you know EVERY business can potentially generate hazardous waste?
• Do you know how to identify potentially hazardous wastes and how to manage them properly?
• Do you know the differences between a conditionally exempt small quantity generator, a small quantity generator and, a large quantity generator?
• Do you know how long you can store hazardous wastes at your facility?

The Business Environmental Program has been providing free and confidential
hazardous waste assistance since 1988. Come on in and find out how we can help

Biotic Harmony
By Sara Gutterman, CEO & Publisher Green Building Media

Last night, as I was watching a story on the evening news about the extensive fires in Texas, I had a strange revelation. The newscasters were using the same language to describe the battle against the conflagration as they did in the previous story about ground warfare in Afghanistan.

As I listened to the broadcast, it became crystal clear to me how misguided we have become by the hubristic conviction that we can, in any way, control nature. To paraphrase American ecologist Aldo Leopold, until we regard nature as a community to which we belong, rather than a commodity that belongs to us, we will continue to abuse and disrespect it.

It’s quite elemental—there is no battle to be fought with nature. The weapons and “diplomatic” strategies that we employ in wartime scenarios are utterly useless against the raw, primal, impartial, and invincible forces of nature.

In warfare, it’s said that the best defense is a good offense, but not so with nature. When it comes to the elements, there is simply no offence. We can neither harness nor prevent natural disasters, so it seems that our only strategy is preparedness.

We can no longer ignore the undeniable changes in our climate that have resulted in over ten separate billion dollar disaster events in the U.S. this year alone—the emotional distress and economic destruction is too great on individuals and businesses (according to FEMA, a staggering 40 percent of businesses struck by a natural disaster never reopen, and according to American Red Cross, nearly 60 percent of Americans are not prepared for a disaster of any kind.)

Today, we spend billions of dollars on profligate and often ineffective offensive strategies, fighting wars for access to oil. How much of our grandchildren’s future are we willing to mortgage on a futile fight against nature? When will we actually allow our pens to trump our swords, enabling our innovation to triumph over our stubbornness?

Rather than waging a battle against the elements, perhaps a more realistic quest is to establish a sense of harmony between man and land. Instead of accepting shoddy construction that feeds our quick-flip, lowest-upfront-cost addiction, wouldn’t it be wiser and more expedient to focus our efforts on preparing for extreme weather?

Those of us in the building industry have a particularly unique responsibility—a duty—to keep our country safe by designing and constructing stronger buildings that can withstand the impacts of disaster, as well as infrastructure that can protect our communities from floods and fires. There are things that can only be accomplished by working together—with ourselves as well as with nature. What would happen if we, together, focused our efforts on creating systems that worked in balance with nature to, for example, channel flood waters from Louisiana to quench the fires in its scorched neighboring state of Texas? Could we achieve biotic harmony then?

Have ideas about how we can create harmony between man and land? Please write to me at sara@greenbuildermag.com or follow me on Twitter @SaraGBM.