12.1 INTRODUCTION

The purpose of pollution prevention is to find opportunities that reduce or eliminate waste or conserve resources while avoiding costs and not sacrificing quality. This chapter provides an overview of what pollution prevention is, defines a pollution prevention hierarchy and common techniques within that hierarchy, and provides methodologies for incorporating pollution prevention into design, manufacturing/ construction, operations, and deconstruction/environmental restoration.

The U.S. Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 defined pollution prevention as source reduction. Source reduction refers to any practice that "reduces the amount of any hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant entering any waste stream or otherwise released into the environment (including fugitive emissions) prior to recycling, treatment, or disposal; and reduces the hazards to public health and the environment associated with the release of such substances, pollutants, or contaminants" (U.S.C. Title 42). Simply put, the term pollution prevention means to reduce or eliminate the creation of waste or pollutants. In practice, pollution prevention activities tend to be broader than just source reduction and include reuse, recycling, purchase of environmentally preferable products, treatment, and environmentally safe disposal if no other options exist. For the purposes of this chapter, the terms waste minimization and waste reduction will be assumed to be the same as pollution prevention.

The field of pollution prevention is essentially all the techniques that will eliminate or reduce waste volume and/or toxicity. Pollution prevention specialists often refer to a pollution...