Customer Reviews

Pollution Prevention Opportunity Assessments for Research & Developments Laboratories

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"Pollution prevention" (P2) is the art of planning work of an industrial nature to generate as little waste and pollution as possible... hopefully zero. This is relatively easy to do in large-scale industrial systems, where many alternatives exist for equipment, raw materials, process-step sequencing, economies of scale, and other process components. For example, a car manufacturer might be able to switch from toxic solvent "A" to non-toxic solvent "B" without sacrificing quality at all.

Things are different in research and development (R&D) labs, where an experiment might require precisely "two parts A and three parts B" and both A and B are toxic. If you substitute chemical "C" you might completely change the nature of the experiment, rendering its results useless.

Fowler and Engel-Cox have managed to walk a fine line, writing an excellent book that provides a number of thoughtful strategies for reducing waste volume and toxicity in laboratory settings without compromising the validity of the results of the experiment.

The heart of their strategy is the "pollution prevention opportunity assessment;" a thorough review of an industrial process to look for chances to reduce waste generation. Fowler and Engel-Cox manage to take this standard of commercial and industrial P2 and find ways to make it totally applicable to R&D activities--- no small feat when most of the past work in P2 has been focused on manufacturing and large scale processes.

An excellent book. It is a must-read for R&D and laboratory managers, technicians, and environmental compliance staffs. I recommend it highly for anyone in the P2 or environmental field.