Finding green in clean: Progressive pollution prevention at hyde tools

Hyde Tools, Inc., of Southbridge, Massachusetts, is a medium-sized firm employing about three hundred persons. In 1988, it learned of a company that eliminated its wastewater discharge after being threatened with massive Clean Water Act fines resulting from a suit brought by a Massachusetts environmental group. Hyde decided to devise a similar program to attain zero water discharge and do it within five years. More than 75 percent toward its goal, Hyde'S environmental success, detailed in this article, still relies heavily on the company'S Total Quality Management system and the efforts of a dedicated environmental staff. Hyde'S success typifies TQEM in action—showing how small continuous improvements can lead to significant financial paybacks.     

Beyond pollution prevention: A vision for an integrated environmental business management strategy

In this article the authors assert that successful long-term pollution prevention will require changes in the culture and business practices of an organization such that the term “pollution prevention” eventually becomes obsolete. They envision firms evolving to a point where actions that today are referred to as pollution prevention will simply be part of standard business practices and thoroughly embedded in the firms' culture. Although pollution prevention projects and programs need to be highly visible at the outset to communicate throughout the organization and to demonstrate the benefits that can be gained, companies should adopt a long-term strategy aimed at making fundamental changes in the way they do business, rather than relying solely on piecemeal projects and special plans or programs. Such evolution of the firm will maximize the chances of meeting the dual challenges of business competitiveness and environmental stewardship. This article presents a vision for integrating environmental performance with business objectives and suggests practical steps to begin moving toward that vision.     

Integrating pollution prevention into the manufacturing process

An Integrated Manufacturing and Environmental (IME) approach to pollution prevention offers the opportunity to achieve regulatory compliance and substantial operational efficiencies. It is accomplished by realizing the simple fact that waste represents a quality defect and adapting traditional manufacturing industry analytical methods to also consider environmental factors. The author outlines techniques and procedures entailed by this approach that are applicable to both large and small facilities as part of an overall Total Quality Management program. Several case examples are provided.     

Application of modeling and simulation tools in costs and pollution monitoring

This paper presents the development and application of process modeling and simulation tools to aid in the monitoring and measuring of pollution from industry, and investigate a plant's overall performance. A case study of a generic reduction plant is investigated, taking into account the underlying principles that determine the amount of fluoride emissions released from the plant's processes. The simulation study includes the investigation of the gas cleaning system within the plant, such as the system's operating relationships between the scrubbing efficiency, wear of the scrubber filter bags, maintenance costs and its response to the change of scrubbing circulation. Two sets of simulation runs are performed to seek a balance for the plant's overall system performance, taking into account environmental issues (fluoride emissions) and cost. The final simulation result demonstrates that cost savings can be achieved when the plant operates in a cleaner manner.     

Making pollution prevention part of the coors culture

This article is about Total Quality Management and its relationship to corporate environmental affairs. As the TQM movement expands, the commitment to continuous quality improvement, customer satisfaction, and collaborative, team-oriented workplaces is finding new applications. Just as the success of Federal Express, AT&T, and other winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award shows that Total Quality Management can transform a business, we also are learning of successes companies are having applying TQM principles to environmental management. Our experience with TQM and environmental management at Coors Brewing Company is in the area of pollution prevention. In addition to our brewing operations, we also operate the country's largest aluminum can manufacturing plant, where we produce 4 billion cans a year, a separate facility that makes the can tops, a glass bottle manufacturing plant, and various support facilities. In all, we have some 7,000 employees, and building a commitment to pollution prevention in an operation of that size requires much more than just adopting quality principles. In this article we show how it also means understanding how those principles will mesh with the corporate culture. What we found is that before TQM can begin its magic, a company must review its own culture to see how problems have traditionally been solved and how challenges have been met.     

Integrated water management for the Rhine river basin, from pollution prevention to ecosystem improvement

The river Rhine has been in humanity's use for many centuries for a variety of activities. However, in our time, considerable changes in the course and the natural conditions of the river and the increasing use of the river for the discharge of wastewater has caused serious floods and major ecological problems. Since 1950, the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR) acts as the coordination point between the states bordering the Rhine for the development of programmes for river protection. The Sandoz disaster in 1986 was a turning point in the approach of the ICPR and the starting point for the present strategy of integrated riverbasin management. Recent developments have indicated the success of the current approach.     

Applying tqem practices to pollution prevention at AT&T's columbus works plant

In recent years AT&T changed its focus on environmental policies from compliance to pollution prevention. Pollution prevention is an integrated program that includes design for the environment, “green” manufacturing, and a comprehensive program to reduce existing waste in production. The principles of Total Quality Management can be applied to pollution prevention as well as the more traditional manufacturing concepts. The project described in this article is one of several concurrent programs being conducted at AT&T'S Columbus Works to reduce overall waste produced by the facility by applying TQM practices.     

Heavy metal tolerance genes: prospective tools for bioremediation

Unlike compounds that can be broken down, the remediation of most heavy metals and radionuclides requires removal from contaminated sources. Plants can extract inorganics, but effective phytoextraction requires plants that produce high biomass, grow rapidly and possess high capacity-uptake for the inorganic substrate. Either the existing hyperaccumulator plants must be bred for increased growth and biomass, or that hyperaccumulation traits must be engineered into fast growing, high biomass plants. The latter approach requires fundamental knowledge of the molecular mechanisms in the uptake and storage of inorganics. Much has been learned in recent years on how plants and certain fungi chelate and transport cadmium. This progress has been facilitated by the use of Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model system. As target genes are identified in a model organism, their sequences can be modified for expression in a heterologous host or aid in the search of homologous genes in more complex organisms. Moreover, as plant nutrient uptake is intrinsically linked to the association with rhizospheric fungi, elucidating metal sequestration in this fungus permits additional opportunities for engineering rhizospheric microbes to assist in phytoextraction.     

Hypsographs: Basic tools for lake management and monitoring

Hypsographs are graphic depictions of the vertical distributions of volumes or masses of water in lakes, ponds, or reservoirs. Quantitative limnological science or engineering must use a hypsograph, or a more complex equivalent system, to undertake calculations of water constituent concentration data by mathematical weighting. Construction of the graph is simple and described. Exemplary uses of the hypsograph are presented.     

Assessing pollution prevention program by QUAL2E simulation analysis for the Kao-Ping River Basin, Taiwan

Wise and sustainable uses of water resources are essential for an effective river-basin-management planning. Recent management strategy further addresses the fact that quantity and quality of water are closely interrelated, and both must be considered simultaneously for all water resources and water quality management practices. The aim of this paper is to explore the impacts of water resources redistribution and pollution prevention actions between and within river basins simultaneously in South Taiwan. Much emphasis will be placed on assessing the impacts of water transfer over natural boundary to satisfy the needs of industrial development in the Tseng-Wen River system and its resultant influence on the water quality in the downstream area of the Kao-Ping River system where the pollution prevention program is to be implemented. The Kao-Ping River was further characterized hydraulically and environmentally, based on a full investigation of discharges and withdrawals in the river reaches. QUAL2E was successfully calibrated and validated using data collected between 1998 and 1999, and the model was capable of predicting the concentrations of biochemical oxygen demand, dissolved oxygen, total phosphate-phosphorus, and ammonia-nitrogen (NH3-N) for the entire river system. With the aid of QUAL2E simulation model, it shows eliminating the pig farming activities and constructing the sewer systems in the upstream area of Kao-Ping River cannot guarantee the full compliance with water quality standards in the downstream area and water transfer in the upstream area further increases negative impacts on the water quality in the wet season. The predicted situation of water quality in the dry season may even present worse condition. Additional water pollution control policy, such as the use of economic instruments, for controlling and reducing the waste-load of biochemical oxygen demand and ammonia-nitrogen is needed in the Kao-Ping River system in the long run.     

PM2.5污染危害分析及防控措施研究

本文论述了PM2.5对环境的危害,在剖析PM2.5组成与来源的基础上,提出防控PM2.5的政策与技术方面的建议,以期为今后PM2.5的防控工作提供理论基础。     

Environmental management information systems: New tools for measuring performance

Successful implementation of environmental management information systems (EMIS) has become essential to the success of total quality environmental management (TQEM) programs. Effective TQEM programs will be early indicators of which companies survive and thrive in today's competitive business environment. Highly competitive industries such as chemicals, electronics, and oil and gas are becoming very effective in cooperating to develop metrics, models, and tools that are based on business processes rather than regulatory edicts. Now electric power companies, newly exposed to market competition, are starting to develop and implement these metrics, standards, and tools. That industry provides a model for joining TQEM and EMIS.     

Coefficients of pollution: Interindustry linkage and pollution in Belgium

The paper briefly develops an approach toward using pollution coefficients from one country as an expedience for applying an environmental economic analysis to a separate, but similar country for which hard data may not be available.The Coefficients are defined based upon information available from the Netherlands and the United States in combination with input-output data available for Belgium. A combination of the various data results in a crude estimate of the direct and indirect pollution generation per unit activity in different sectors on a country-wide basis.