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Chapter 2 - Reducing pollution

Marquita K. Hill
Affiliation:
University of Maine, Orono
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Summary

“We aren't passengers on Spaceship Earth; we're the crew. We aren't residents of this planet; we're citizens. The difference in both cases is responsibility.”

Astronaut Rusty Schweikart

Some pollution problems are daunting. Thus, even before discussing them, this chapter introduces ways to control – better still, not produce – pollution. This chapter also introduces tools that we can use for assistance in moving toward sustainable societies. Section I considers the risks of individual chemicals (to be covered in more detail in Chapter 4). It also introduces comparative risk assessment, which allows us to compare not just the risk of individual chemicals, but the seriousness of various environmental problems: Which pose the greatest risks? Section II addresses how a society can protect its environment. Legislation plays a major role. But, many laws stress trapping pollution once it is produced. A newer paradigm is pollution prevention (P2) or source reduction – changing the process to generate less pollution to begin with. If P2 is not feasible, reuse or recycle are often good options. P2 has limitations too, so Section III introduces industrial ecology (IE), which looks for ways to mesh human activities, industrial and otherwise, into the natural environment. The tools of IE include life-cycle assessment and design for the environment.

SECTION I

Risk assessment

A question that has confronted us for many years is how to evaluate environmental threats. To respond to this question, the tool of risk assessment was developed over a period of decades.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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References

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US Environmental Protection Agency (a US agency) 2002. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/reduce.htm#hhw (accessed December, 2002)
US Environmental Protection Agency (a US agency) 2003. Toxic Release Inventory Program. http://www.epa.gov/tri/index.htm
World Bank. 2000. Greening Industry, Public Information Strategies. http://www.worldbank.org/nipr/pub_info.htm (accessed January, 2002)

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  • Reducing pollution
  • Marquita K. Hill, University of Maine, Orono
  • Book: Understanding Environmental Pollution
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840647.003
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  • Reducing pollution
  • Marquita K. Hill, University of Maine, Orono
  • Book: Understanding Environmental Pollution
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840647.003
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Reducing pollution
  • Marquita K. Hill, University of Maine, Orono
  • Book: Understanding Environmental Pollution
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511840647.003
Available formats
×