 "Photo: Katrina Perry")
That one company's hazardous waste can be another's valuable raw material was the idea of the Pollution Prevention Workshop held Wednesday.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality hosted the workshop to educate environmental, health and safety managers, plant managers and production personnel on strategies for decreasing wastes in their pollution prevention, or P2 plan, according to a commission press release. A pollution prevention plan required under the Waste Reduction Policy Act applies to facilities that generate small or large quantities of hazardous waste, according to the release.
The act requires facilities to prepare a five-year P2 plan, submit a summary of the plan and annually report on their pollution prevention activities, according to the commission's Web site.
Facilities should look at waste as an opportunity to make a profit because allowing this output into the air takes away any value it could have served, said Jeff Voorhis, an engineer for the commission.
"What is in the air is the smell of money," Voorhis said.
BASF - The Chemical Company discovered that industries using carbon black to reinforce rubber and plastic products could use its hazardous waste with a high carbon and low sulfur content, Voorhis said.
"They saved over $2.2 million per year," Voorhis said.
But management for these facilities may be concerned with the cost of environmentally friendly technology for reducing wastes, said Shannon Herriott, a pollution prevention specialist for the commission. Since the technology is more efficient, it ends up saving facilities a lot of money, she said.
Workshop attendees participated in group exercises where they listed the outputs of processes used in their facilities, Herriott said. They prioritized the outputs with the top being a harmful outcome that they wanted to reduce the most to those of less concern, she said.
"They are likely to learn more by actually doing," Herriott said.
Facility employees need to look at the big picture, because some processes may produce waste that they do not expect, Herriott said.
"Even a janitor washing floors with a toxic soap could produce waste, but changing the soap could end up saving a lot of money," said Jennifer Lasseter, a commission member.
The workshop will continue today from 8 a.m. to noon at the UT Thompson Conference Center located at 2405 Robert Dedman Drive.
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