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Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology EN012I-591 July 26, 2001 15:54

604 Pollution Prevention from Chemical Processes

If a person cannot be found in the business who Environmental Progress, Pollution Prevention Review,
can facilitate a brainstorming session, then a consultant, and so on
possibly someone at the local university or college, will be State pollution prevention offices or centers. Many
needed. states offer services to small- and medium-sized
The outsiders or wildcards should be good chemical en- businesses (over 13,000 case studies are available on
gineering and process chemistry generalists, and not di- the Internet at www.P2PAYS.org)
rectly associated with the process. The technology special- Private consultants or consulting firms
ists should be skilled in the engineering unit operations or Private consortia and organizations, for example,
technology areas that are most critical to waste generation AIChE’s Center for Waste Reduction Technology
in the manufacturing process, for example, drying, parti- (CWRT), the Center for Clean Industrial Treatment
cle technology, reaction engineering, pumps. Most mid- Technology (CenCITT), and the National Center for
size to large companies can identify the outsiders, wild- Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS)
cards, and technology specialists internally. For smaller Pollution prevention or waste minimization centers at
firms, sources of wildcards and technology specialists universities, for example, the UCLA Center for Clean
include academia, engineering consultants, and research Technology, the Pollution Prevention Research Center
institutes. at North Carolina State University, and the Emission
A wealth of information is available on pollution pre- Reduction Research Center at the New Jersey Institute
vention successes across many industries; however, it is of Technology (NJIT),
primarily packaged in the form of process-specific case Numerous other Internet sites, such as those of the
histories. As a result, the information is not organized in Great Lakes Pollution Prevention Centre in Canada
a sufficiently generalized way so as to allow the rapid and the Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention
transfer of knowledge from one type of industry to an- Resource Center.
other. To help the practitioners of pollution prevention—
engineers and scientists—more quickly to generate ideas, A review on using the Internet for pollution prevention
this process- or industry-specific information has been was published by Scott Butner (1997) at the Battelle Seat-
transformed into generalized knowledge that can be more tle Research Center. All of these resources can be used to
easily implemented by project teams and existing manu- help prepare a brainstorming team for the generation of
facturing facilities. The information is organized in a “unit ideas.
operations” format to facilitate widespread used across
different processes and industries (right-hand column of
Fig. 10). X. ENGINEERING EVALUATIONS
Other sources for ideas are available, many on the In- OF THE PREFERRED OPTIONS
ternet. Some examples include the following:
Engineering evaluation is the application of a full range
of engineering skills to business decision making. It aids
decision making by translating technical options into eco-
The Chemical Manufacturers Association publication,
“Designing Pollution Prevention into the Process: nomic impact, guidance that is fundamental to business
Research, Development & Engineering,” Appendices decisions. The evaluation quickly focuses on only those
A and B data and analyses which are essential to quantify techni-
cal and economic feasibility. For each preferred option,
The “Industrial Pollution Prevention Handbook” by
Harry M. Freeman the evaluation involves the following:

The U.S. EPA’s Pollution Prevention Directory
(published annually) Defining the commercial process

The U.S. EPA’s Pollution Prevention Information Flowsheeting
Clearinghouse (PPIC) Analyzing the process
The U.S. EPA’sOffice of Pollution Prevention and Defining manufacturing facilities
Toxics (OPPT) Estimating investment and manufacturing cost
The U.S. EPA’s Pesticide Environmental Stewardship Analyzing economics
Program Assessing risk
The U.S. EPA’s Environ$en$e (environsense) database
Case histories in journals such as Chemical The evaluation provides an objective view for decision
Engineering Progress, Journal of Chemical making that is grounded in both engineering science and
Technology and Biotechnology, Chemical Engineering, economics.