Waste reduction: The time has come Ten years ago this month a United Nations conference in Paris formally introduced a new concept in resource management and environmental control-the front-end approach to minimizing resource input and effluent output through revamping and redesigning industrial processes and products. The first U.N. Economic Commission for Europe Seminar on Non-Waste Technology called on member countries to adopt comprehensive approaches to shrinking the sources of hazards and wastes. In that pre-love Canal-Bhopal era, this call was met with indifference to what many deemed an impractical and idealistic agenda. Yet a decade later, nonwaste technology-or what is now called waste reduction or waste minimization-is’ looked upon as our best hope for reversing the flood of toxic substances and hazardous wastes into the environment. The congressional Office of Technology Assessment terms waste reduction “critical to the prevention of future hazardous waste problems.” Industries from the Fortune 500 companies on down have begun to minimize waste production. States, and even local governments, have set up waste minimization assistance activities. And in Washington there is growing sentiment in favor of a sizable increase in federal involvement, including direct regulation, to stimulate reduction. What has happened? Industry and government alike have begun to see that the toxics-as-usual approach to hazardous-waste management is not working. Building better landfills and tighter drums is not the way to reduce the nation’s hazardous-waste burden. Totally secure containment is impossible; and the rapidly inflating costs of liability for toxic mishaps, and for handling and disposal of hazardous substances, are becoming intolerable. Fortunately, there are emerging approaches to toxics management that can reduce costs as well as effluents. 3M discovered years ago that “pollution prevention pays.” Its 3P waste minimization effort saved that company $200 million and cut wastewater emissions by 1.4 billion gal annually in the first eight years of operation. Other industries have only recently started to look to frontend approaches to eliminate hazardous wastes. There is clear forward movement in waste reduction. Its net effect, though, has been small. Despite estimates W13938wBBK192o11ssJol.~ @ ISSSAmer’mn Chemical Society
that waste reduction could cut our hazardous-waste stream by one-half or more, that stream is in fact still growing. The long-sought light, in the form of waste reduction systems, may be at the end of the hazardouswaste tunnel-but that tunnel must be straightened out to let the light through. For this to occur, industry and government must step up efforts to develop cooperative approaches to meet priority waste reduction needs. Lack of adequate information in the private sector has proven a significant barrier to waste reduction. The federal government, with its superior resources, can take a cue from fledgling state programs to formulate strong programs for information development and dissemination. Research and development grant programs, mandated yearly waste reduction targets, and regulatory concessions to encourage waste reduction in place of end-of-pipe treatment have been suggested as needed federal actions. It is not clear what mix of government and private-sector programs will best serve waste minimization. What is clear, however, is that it is very much in the federal government’s interest to invest time, leadership, and money in waste reduction. The success of waste minimization in the United States will have important international implications. As a recent conference of European hazardous-waste facility operators documented, developing countries are. eyeing the industrialized world’s progress in hazardous-waste. management as they formulate their own programs. The more success in waste reduction here, the greater will be the benefit to the global community.
AHhw ti. Funell isfounding director of the Resource Policy Institute (Wzvhington, D.C.) and heads its Waste Reduction Services program. H e was a member of the U.S. delegation to thefirst U.N. Seminar on Non-Waste Ethnology. H e is the author of The Waste Watchers (Doubleday/Anchor Press). H e is a graduate of Cornell University and holds a Ph. D. and an U.S. in mnterials science and engineering from Northwestern. Emiron. Sci. Technol..Vol. 20,No. 12. 1986 1189
