Experience with the EPA manual for waste minimization opportunity assessments

The EPA Waste Minimization Opportunity Assessment Manual (EPA/625/788/003) was published to assist those responsible for managing waste minimization activities at the waste generating facility and at corporate levels. The Manual sets forth a procedure that incorporates technical and managerial principles and motivates people to develop and implement pollution prevention concepts and ideas. Environmental management has increasingly become one of cooperative endeavor whereby whether in government, industry, or other forms of enterprise, the effectiveness with whirl, people work together toward the attainment of a clean environment is largely determined by the ability of those who hold managerial position. This paper offers a description of the EPA Waste Minimization Opportunity Assessment Manual procedure which supports the waste minimization assessment as a systematic planned procedure with the objective of identifying ways to reduce or eliminate waste generation. The Manual is a management tool that blends science and management principles. The practice of managing waste minimization/pollution prevention makes use of the underlying organized science and engineering knowledge and applies it in the light of realities to gain a desired, practical result. The early stages of EPA's Pollution Prevention Research Program centered on the development of the Manual and its use at a number of facilities within the private and public sectors. This paper identifies a number of case studies and waste minimization opportunity assessment reports that demonstrate the value of using the Manual's approach. Several industry-specific waste minimization assessment manuals have resulted from the Manual's generic approach to waste minimization. There were some modifications to the Manual's generic approach when the waste stream has been other than industrial hazardous waste