ABSTRACT
The concept of pollution prevention was rst dened as “waste minimization” and was introduced when the U.S. Congress specically stated the following in the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA):
In its 1986 report to Congress (EPA/530/SW86-033), the EPA detailed the concept of waste minimization as follows:
The most important piece of legislation enacted to date, however, is the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. The Pollution Prevention Act, signed into law in November 1990, established pollution prevention as a “national objective.” The Act notes that
In the current working denition used by the EPA, source reduction and closed-loop recycling are considered to be the most viable pollution prevention techniques, preceding treatment and disposal. In its original “Pollution Prevention Policy Statement” published in the January 26, 1989, in the Federal Register, the EPA encouraged organizations, facilities, and individuals to fully utilize source reduction and recycling practices and procedures to reduce risk to public health, safety, and the environment.
