{"id":2715,"date":"2010-09-20T08:56:25","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T15:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unrbep.org\/?p=2715"},"modified":"2010-09-20T08:56:25","modified_gmt":"2010-09-20T15:56:25","slug":"the-pollution-prevention-act-turns-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/the-pollution-prevention-act-turns-20\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pollution Prevention Act Turns 20"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not only P2<\/a> Week, but the 20th anniversary celebration of the Pollution Prevention Act<\/a>. I hate to say it, but I\u2019ve been in the P2 business long enough to remember when the law was created (I even had a bit of role in helping create it\u2026but that\u2019s another story). I remember the endless discussions on definitions, the role of P2 in regulations, the importance of P2 accounting, and even debates on whether it should be called \u201cpollution prevention\u201d at all.<\/p>\n

Back in the day, P2 was an idea that received a lot of attention and a lot of discussion, but there wasn\u2019t a heck of a lot of activity on the ground that one could point to and say \u201cHere\u2019s P2 in action!\u201d In fact, when I began my environmental career by studying P2 in the chemical industry, we were hard-pressed to come up with actual examples.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sign of the success of the P2 Act and P2 programs around the country that the situation has totally reversed. P2 may not be the endless gab-fest it was two decades ago, but source reduction activities are happening all over the place, and really having an impact.<\/p>\n

The generation of hazardous wastes, TRI wastes, and priority chemical wastes have all decreased, even as the economy has grown. Compliance and enforcement activities have driven P2 solutions, and so has EPA\u2019s P2 grants to states. Programs like Energy Star, Design for the Environment and EPEAT increasingly find themselves using \u201cbillions\u201d rather than \u201cmillions\u201d to describe their impact on waste streams and cost savings.<\/p>\n

With all that\u2019s been accomplished, though, I can\u2019t help feeling that we\u2019ve only just begun to scratch the surface. If companies, communities and consumers make a concerted effort at eliminating wastes at the source, then perhaps the theme of P2 Week in 2020 can be the arrival of the zero-waste society, one where greenhouse gas emissions, toxic exposures in the home and workplace, waste disposal in landfills and underground wells, and nutrient dumping in our nation\u2019s waters are all a rapidly fading memory.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not only P2 Week, but the 20th anniversary celebration of the Pollution Prevention Act. I hate to say it, but I\u2019ve been in the P2 business long enough to remember when the law was created (I even had a bit of role in helping create it\u2026but that\u2019s another story). I remember the endless discussions … Continue reading The Pollution Prevention Act Turns 20<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2715"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2716,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2715\/revisions\/2716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unrbep.org\/dealerportal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}