Abstract: | Waste accounting has become a necessary practice for companies endeavoring to track their wastes toward realizing discrete waste minimization and pollution prevention objectives. Measurement systems and program initiatives certainly must be tested to find out what will repeatedly work for and best serve a company. Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G) has committed to revolutionizing the processes of managing materials, wastes, and their associated information. In laying out their strategic plan, company representatives specified the need for a companywide waste accounting system to enable them to monitor progress toward achieving two important short-term waste management targets by the close of 1995. Together with the Electric Power Research Institute, PSE&G is implementing a four-year program to install such a system. The results of the first year-and-a-half's work are reported in this article. The purpose of this article is to discuss the results of implementing a waste accounting system on a utility companywide basis. We will address the experience of bringing such a system on-line at PSE&G. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) previously developed a framework and approach for measuring the performance of utility pollution prevention programs called waste accounting, including the development of a software program called Accounting Software Application for Pollution Prevention or ASAPP.1 These programs were devised to assimilate detailed information from the facility up through the corporate levels. |