Industrial Pollution Prevention! A Critical Review

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. ” Trite? Maybe, but this proverb is comingtobein*-- as a raUying cry for U.S. environmental programs. The tor of the US. EPA hae stated, “A new “w of urgency and resolve to improve the quality of the environment has taken root in our countxy. Despite the complexity of the environmental chal-r perhaps because of itwe are falling back on some simple and common sense ideas. One of them is pollution prevention. ” “he U.S. Congress passed the Pollution Prevention Act in October 1990. Pollution prevention is clearly a concept that will be of inmimportance to U. S. companies and to the public agencies that are responsible for regulating those companies. In this critical review the authore present the current state of knowledge “g pollution prevention approaches to environmental improvement, explore the ate of development of various private and public approaches to encouraging the adoption of pollution prevention strategies, highhght selected clean technologies and clean products, and examine various technical and economic issues related to the concept of pollution prevention. This paper was commisioned by the Air and Waste Management Association to be