ABSTRACT
The single most important challenge facing today’s environmental engineer of any major industry is how to keep environmentalist organizations, regulators, and stakeholders on one side and business managers and shareholders on the other side satisfied simultaneously. Complying with existing regulations is a simple matter of incorporating a few additional process changes. Unfortunately, changes of this kind are costly. In the process, waste changes from one form to another. The only way out of this complex situation is through incorporation of waste minimization/pollution prevention (WMin/P2) measures, every step of the way, wherever economically feasible. As per a National Association of Manufacturers’ survey, companies that take advantage of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 33-50 emissions reduction program for toxic chemicals, over half the companies saved money (1). In spite of this encouraging fact, resistance to incorporate waste minimization or pollution prevention at any level is very real. Many industrial houses today have placed a vice president in charge of environmental affairs. These companies have a vision and mission statement to go with the position, but when it comes to changing a process or incorporating a significant change, it just won’t happen. This is true for an existing process in which waste is managed as an end-of-pipe fact under the waste management (WM) program and also in the case of site cleanup that is conducted under the environmental restoration (ER) process or under the decontamination/decommissioning (D&D) process for an abandoned facility.
