About Toxics Use Reduction (TUR)

Potential Health Risks from Toxic Chemical Exposures

Toxic chemicals used in the workplace have resulted in serious health impacts on workers, the ecosystem and our water, air and land environments. Toxic chemical exposure is not merely associated with chemical use in manufacturing. A few examples of other exposure scenarios include:

• Dry cleaning shops have used perchloroethylene, a carcinogen and reproductive and developmental toxicant, for years. Perchloroethylene releases from these operations have resulted in wide-scale contamination of drinking water resources.
• Methylene chloride has been used in a wide variety of industrial and non-industrial activities – in vapor degreasers, as a blowing agent for urethane foam, a solvent carrier for adhesives, and for paint stripping during refinishing of autos, furniture and other household products. At least 14 workers have died since 2000 just as a result of using methylene chloride-based strippers during refinishing of bathtubs.
• Workers in beauty salons are often exposed to an array of hazardous chemicals – including toluene, styrene, di-butyl phthalate and formaldehyde – that can cause everything from skin rashes and headaches to cancer and liver damage.

Chemicals in the Workplace

Chemical production and use in the U.S. economy has expanded dramatically for decades. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates over a $1.2 trillion increase in the value of U.S. chemical output between 2000Introduction to Toxics Use Reduction 2 2020. In addition, the range and diversity of chemical products is expanding as companies innovate to meet commercial opportunities or requirements.

The strength of U.S. chemical production obviously provides major benefits to the economy in general. It is important to recognize, however, the hazards of chemicals for those working with them and for the environment. For some of the most toxic of these chemicals, the only adequate protection is a transition to safer alternatives.

TUR is one of several forms of pollution prevention (P2), and the two terms are often used interchangeably. The goals of P2 and TUR are identical: to reduce waste at the source, prior to treatment, control or disposal. TUR is simply a specific type of pollution prevention that focuses on toxic chemicals; P2 encompasses all resources such as energy and non-hazardous chemicals. Nevertheless, as you will learn in this course, when implemented properly, the TUR planning process greatly enhances productivity and conserves all types of resources, such as water, raw materials, and energy. In fact, resource conservation and energy conservation have been part of the TURA program since TURA was amended 2006.

Pollution Prevention vs. Pollution Control

It is important to understand the distinction between pollution prevention and pollution control in order to successfully develop and implement a TUR Plan and to comply with TURA. Pollution control deals with waste after it has been generated, whereas Pollution Prevention attempts to avoid generating waste in the first place. Any action taken after waste has been generated, including recycling, treatment, concentration, or dilution is not considered P2.

Pollution prevention differs from pollution control in several important ways:

1. P2 is about reducing or eliminating the use of toxic chemicals or the generation of hazardous byproducts at, or prior to production rather Introduction to Toxics Use Reduction 3 than limiting the discharge of wastes at the property line of an industrial facility.
2. P2 is about planning and goal setting with an eye toward the efficient use of materials in production rather than about regulations, permits and licenses, which may take time from designing efficient production systems.
3. P2 is about continuous improvement rather than about merely compliance with environmental regulations. It encourages firms to set reasonable goals, and after meeting them, to reset the goals for further improvements.
4. P2 is about real reductions of toxic chemical use and toxic chemical waste, rather than shifting the risk of chemical exposure between population groups (e.g. workers or consumers) or environmental media (air, water and soil).

P2 is about incorporating goals into an effective management system that includes:

• Defining responsibilities
• Providing resources
• Taking corrective actions if goals are not met
• Reviewing periodically
• Managing changes or new developments

Pollution Prevention Hierarchy

In 1990, with the passage of the Pollution Prevention Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed a formal definition of pollution prevention and a strategy for making P2 a national priority. The strategy established a hierarchy to guide national policy:

• Pollution should be prevented or reduced at the source whenever feasible.
• Pollution that cannot be prevented should be recycled in an environmentally safe manner whenever feasible.
• Pollution that cannot be prevented or recycled should be treated in an environmentally safe manner whenever feasible.
• Disposal or other release into the environment should be employed only as a last resort and should be conducted in an environmentally safe manner.

To understand the definition and the significance of TUR, it is useful to know how it fits in the historical context of environmental policy and regulation in the United States. As a concept and as a tool for environmental policy-making, TUR did not materialize overnight, but rather evolved as a response to the inherent limitations and weaknesses of the predominant environmental protection policies that took root in the early 1970s.

1970s – Pollution Control and Cleanup

The landmark pieces of legislation passed in the early 1970s were aggressive in their mission to clean up and control the most visible types of air and water pollution. The gains were notable. Air quality improved dramatically through the use of catalytic converters, and waterways gradually started coming back from the grave through greatly expanded sewage treatment programs.

However, the emphasis of the legislation in the 1970s was on pollution control – managing substances that had already been sacrificed as waste. The laws prescribed end-of-pipe or end-of-stack technologies such as scrubbers, and regulated permissible amounts of emissions and discharges. Industries approached the economical and technical limits of waste treatment, because the costs of removing pollutants from a waste stream increase exponentially as greater efficiencies are achieved.

Moreover, the legislation of the 1970s did not focus earnestly on the less visible forms of pollution, namely hazardous waste. In the 40 years following the Second World War, the amount of hazardous waste generated in the United States increased from about one billion pounds per year to almost 22 billion pounds per year. Despite an EPA policy in 1976 that made reducing hazardous waste at the source the agency’s highest priority, federal and state agencies spent about $16 billion a year on hazardous waste control efforts, but only $4 million on source reduction of hazardous waste.

1980s – Crisis Management, Liability & Toxics

Several high-profile incidents in the 1980s focused national attention on toxics. In response, Superfund was enacted to clean up America’s most hazardous waste sites. But the enormous expense of hazardous waste cleanup, and the complicated liability issues associated with it greatly inhibited actual environmental progress. As a nation, we were learning that wastes that are thrown away do not go away, and indeed, there is no “away” with.hazardous wastes. Pollution treatment and control generally did not get rid of pollutants, but simply shifted them from one environmental medium to another. For example, scrubbers – air pollution treatment devices used by power plants – are relatively effective at stripping sulfur from air emissions, but the sulfur is simply transferred to the land in the form of a hazardous slurry that must be disposed.

In 1989 the EPA released the first reports from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a national survey of industrial chemical releases established under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act of 1986. The data revealed a much larger volume of pollutants released to the environment than any of the previous estimates. One important point was becoming increasingly clear: it is better to prevent waste in the first place than to clean it up later.

Pollution Prevention

By 1990, the concept of pollution prevention was catching on. Congress passed the Pollution Prevention Act (P2 Act) in 1990, which established an administrative base and information-tracking capacity for pollution prevention at the EPA. The P2 Act also provided funding for states to develop their own pollution prevention programs.

In 1989, Massachusetts passed the Toxics Use Reduction Act (TURA), a statute intended to promote safer and cleaner production, and enhance the economic viability of Massachusetts firms. TURA was the first law of its kind in the United States. Whereas traditional environmental regulations focused on controlling emissions and releases of pollutants to the environment, TURA promoted preventive strategies. Toxics use reduction (TUR) was predicated on the simple realization that it is better to avoid generating pollution in the first place than to try to treat it or manage it later.

In 1989, this was a bold, new way of thinking. It represented a fundamental shift in policy-making since 1970, when environmental regulations focused on specific pollutants after they were released to the environment.

By 1996, every state in the U.S. had at least one pollution prevention program to assist companies in reducing waste. Most P2 Programs provided outreach and developed technical resources to help companies reduce waste at the source. By the end of the 1990s, an impressive amount of useful pollution prevention information had been developed, most of which is accessible on the Internet.

The Advent of TUR – The term toxics use reduction was coined in Massachusetts during informal discussions among environmental advocates who were searching for a new policy approach to reducing the release of toxic chemicals. At the time, the Massachusetts Department of Environment Protection (MassDEP) estimated that Massachusetts firms generated 500 million pounds of toxic wastes each year. More than a thousand hazardous waste sites had been identified in the state, and more than fifty communities had lost part of their drinking water supplies to toxic chemical contamination.

Meanwhile, the costs of managing and disposing of hazardous wastes and the specter of future liability from mismanaged wastes were becoming an increasingly heavy burden for industry.

The concept of toxics use reduction was introduced in bills in both the 1987 and 1988 state legislative sessions. In 1989 members of the Massachusetts business community and representatives of the environmental and public health communities sat down to negotiate a bill that would be acceptable to all parties. After four and a half months of intensive negotiations, consensus was reached on a bill that was passed unanimously by both chambers of the Massachusetts legislature. The Governor signed the bill into law on July 24, 1989.

Today, TURA has become a model for pollution prevention legislation nation-wide and globally. Unlike most environmental legislation that typically mandates control technology and prescribes pollution “limits,” TURA facilitates reductions in toxics by providing mechanisms for companies to establish their own programs and their own reduction goals.

Voluntary Prevention Programs – Throughout the 1990s, the EPA sought to encourage pollution prevention through various voluntary initiatives. One of the first voluntary programs was the 33/50 Program, an ambitious program that encouraged the nation’s largest polluters to cut their releases to 33% and then to 50% from 1988 levels by 1992 and 1995, respectively. The program was so successful it spurred other voluntary and public-private partnership approaches such as:

• Design for the Environment
• Energy Star
• National Environmental Performance Track
• National Partnership for Environmental Priorities

Companies embraced the voluntary initiatives because they enjoyed the incentives – such as regulatory flexibility in achieving limits, and in some cases, public recognition – and they preferred the non-confrontational relationship with the EPA and other regulatory agencies. Meanwhile, parallel developments were taking place internationally. Several European countries established public-private programs focused on the development and adoption of “clean technologies” that use less or no toxic chemicals. The United Nations has established the International Cleaner Production Information Clearinghouse to disseminate the concepts of pollution prevention and clean technologies around the world.

Perhaps the most well known voluntary initiative from the 1990s was the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 standard, adopted in 1996 and updated in 2004. Companies can become ISO certified by developing, implementing and maintaining an Environmental Management System (EMS), a mechanism for tracking, assessing, and continually improving environmental performance. An EMS under ISO 14001 is just one type of environmental management system that companies can develop.

Governments realized throughout the 1990s that, while the threat of regulatory enforcement was still necessary to protect the environment, it could be successfully augmented through effective voluntary initiatives.

2000s – Emphasis on Management Systems and Higher Hazard Substances

The trend toward voluntary initiatives still continues today. The environmental management system model encourages companies to go beyond basic regulatory requirements and even beyond TUR as they strive toward environmental sustainability, and to track their performance improvement.

Other state and foreign environmental policies have also been on the rise. California’s Proposition 65 has been a success in reducing the use toxic chemicals by requiring businesses to disclose information to the public if there are toxics in the product or service that the business is providing. European’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) is like no other environmental policy in the US, because REACH requires industry to register and evaluate their new chemical for a product or service before its use. In addition to REACH, Europe has the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS), which deals with so-called e-waste, or discarded electronic and electrical products.

As a result of these trends, US companies should be aware of these regulations, because today it’s a global economy, and the TURplanning process can help.

How does a company reduce the use of toxics? There are six techniques for achieving toxics use reduction:

1. Input substitution: replacing a toxic substance or raw material used in a production unit with a non-toxic or less toxic substance. Examples include:
   1. Soy-based inks instead of oil-based inks in printing
   2. Aqueous cleaners instead of solvents
2. Product reformulation: reformulating or redesigning end products to be nontoxic or less toxic upon use, release, or disposal. Examples include:
   1. Making latex paint instead of oil paint
   2. Making unbleached paper instead of bleached paper
3. Production unit redesign or modification: using production units of a different design than those used previously. Examples include:
   1. Electrostatic paint spray instead of solvent-based paint
   2. Ozonation instead of chlorine for corrosion control
4. Production unit modernization: upgrading or replacing production unit equipment or methods. Examples include:
   1. Continuous closed system instead of batch process
   2. Counter-current rinsing instead of single rinse tank
5. Improved operation and maintenance: modifying existing equipment or methods by such steps as improved housekeeping, system adjustments, or process/product inspections. Examples include:
   1. Computerized inventory control, spill prevention program
   2. Floating covers on heated baths to prevent evaporation
6. Integral recycling: using equipment or methods that are integral to the production unit. Examples include:
   1. Hard-piped recycling system
   2. Closed-loop, refrigerated condensation of vapors

TUR planning is a process that involves a team of employees representing various departments within a company, each with different responsibilities and/or areas of expertise. The planning process involves:

• Examining how toxic chemicals are manufactured, processed, or otherwise used, and how byproducts are generated.
• Identifying TUR techniques.
• Evaluating the technical and economic feasibility of potential TUR techniques.

The TUR planning process is designed to complement a facility’s existing planning processes as much as possible. TURA does not specify how to plan, leaving companies free to develop whatever planning process and format works for them.

Continuous Improvement in TUR Planning

There are four basic steps in a continual improvement process: plan, implement, evaluate, and review. The TUR planning process is not intended to be static. The review and update process is meant to facilitate further reductions in toxics use and byproduct generation through continual improvement. In this way, the cycle may be more appropriately viewed as an upward spiral, rather than a flat circle.

How can continual improvement be built into the planning process?

Continual improvement can be built into the planning process by:

• Building and maintaining a strong TUR planning team. The planning team should become a standing part of the ongoing management of the facility.
• Scheduling periodic reviews. A schedule should be established in the plan for periodic reviews and reports.
• Building in methods to evaluate and reevaluate performance. The performance of the TUR projects should be periodically assessed against the expected technical and financial returns. The results of these evaluations should not be couched in terms of successes or failures but, rather, in terms of lessons learned and future opportunities.