The featured speaker for the December 1997 dinner meeting was Tom Adkisson of Tetra Tech EM, Inc. His topic was Pollution Prevention. The following is a highly paraphrased and embellished upon rendition of his talk. Hopefully it contains the gist of Tom's message.
Pollution Prevention (reflecting process reformulation, recycling, waste minimization, resource recovery, product substitution, etc.) results in substantial savings in resource use and costs, and protects human health and the environment. Pollution Prevention being a positive aspect of our work is a "No Brainer" activity. This leads to the rhetorical question: "Why isn't everyone doing it?" To delve into this issue, one has to look into the historical aspects of pollution control.
For those of us who can remember the 50s and 60s, there are visions of foam and oil covered streams, dead wildlife, and smoke bellowing industrial stacks. The first environmental regulations issued in the 1960s/1970s resulted in emissions/discharge reductions at the end of the pipe, which reflects what Mr. Adkisson described as adding a "black box" to the system. There were no changes to processes, waste production, product recovery, etc.; the response to the regulatory compliance issue was adding a new treatment system to the end of the existing system. As a result, compliance resulted in a new cost to do business, with no added benefit to the business.
The "black box" mentality continued throughout the 60s and 70s until regulations changed to focus on the production of wastes, not the control of wastes. Proactive industry changed processes, reformulated products, and found other measures to reduce waste production. They benefitted through significant cost reductions and improved efficiency. Reactive industry developed new "black boxes" adding costs but not adding true benefits to the company.
Pollution Prevention is actually a new way of looking to solve old problems. One must attack the problem from a different perspective in order to come up with the new solution. If one's goal is to merely comply with a regulatory standard, then one is thinking in the old mode. If one's goal is to exceed the standards or to find a way that to make the standard no longer applicable due to elimination of the emission, then one must think entirely differently. Pollution Prevention should be treated as a win:win solution. The company becomes more efficient and thus more profitable, and the environment is protected while resources are retained. Under the old way of thinking, Pollution Prevention is a lose:lose situation. The company spends money with little added benefit and resources are wasted.
Pollution Prevention is attacking the source of the problem, not trying to correct something at the end of the process. A significant amount of pollution generated by industry is a result of inefficiencies, either through production of products that do not meet specifications or through the waste of resources in developing the product. Basic processes need to be evaluated and questioned before adequate pollution prevention measures can be implemented. Understanding short-term and long-term costs for pollution prevention is also critical. A few extra dollars spent today can result in significant cost savings. Metrics for demonstrating effectiveness must be developed and tracked during the process of implementing a program, both as a way to measure progress and as a way to improve processes.
Cost for implementing a pollution prevention program is unfortunately one major obstacle preventing some companies from complying with current thinking in this arena. In some instances it is much cheaper to pay fines than to comply. However, the management philosophy mind set for the 1990s typically states that those firms that are innovative in their approach to business, find ways to cut costs and improve efficiencies. The innovative firm will be more successful than businesses with the "Black Box" philosophy. It is not a coincidence that the more successful firms of the late 1990s are the firms with a strong Pollution Prevention program, compared to firms that are struggling, filing for bankruptcy, and going out of business. The "enlightened" business will be taking Pollution Prevention to a new level, becoming more competitive in today's market place. Remember, the basis of a good pollution prevention program is on efficiency of processes to minimize or eliminate wastes which makes the overall business more profitable.
The key to a successful pollution prevention program is people. It must have strong management backing at the top and full acceptance by all individuals in the company involved in purchasing, use, production, and disposal of materials. There can be no conflicts in the reality of meeting business goals while implementing the program.
As the world's population continues to grow, the need for pollution control will be even greater. One can only expect that the costs for pollution control equipment, waste disposal, and inefficient operations will grow with the population. One should expect that the successful firms of the 21st century will have pollution control costs that decrease with time, not increase, through the implementation of an innovative Pollution Prevention program.
Other thoughts on this matter.
Many of us are consultants who are providing Pollution Prevention advice to others, but what are we doing to provide advice to ourselves. I am sure that all of our offices are recycling cans, bottles, paper, etc., but recycling is a 19th century concept. What else could we be doing in our offices to reduce our own pollution.
One of the things we noticed in our office is the large volume of paper that goes through the FAX machine one-sided. (We can double side on the copier, but not on the FAX.) To reduce the volume of paper going through the FAX, we are recycling FAX paper by using the clean side of used FAXes in the FAX machine so that both sides are used before recycling.
Another major potential waste of paper occurs during the production of draft reports. With today's laser printers, it is too convenient to type something on the computer and then print it to review it. This practice wastes paper. We should encourage review and editing on the screen. It is also easy to reprint an entire document when only one or two pages are being corrected. Print only what is necessary.
Probably the largest waste of paper is at the copy machine. With high speed copiers, it is so easy to make a few extra copies of a document, that just get thrown away at the end. We should question the need for the number of copies each time we make a copy.
I would be interested in hearing what others are doing to reduce office wastes. As an office manager, I have the added interest in finding ways to reduce office costs. Please send me an E-Mail (wondojt@aol.com) that can be shared with everyone who reads this Web page.
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