Appendix G

POLLUTION PREVENTION

Section 3170 of Public Law 103-337, The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 1995, requires the Department of Energy to include a discussion on pollution prevention in the 1996 Baseline Environmental Management Report. This section of the Baseline Report responds to that legislative mandate by: (1) summarizing the Department of Energy's pollution prevention program, and (2) discussing the program's potential impact on reducing life-cycle costs of the Department of Energy's environmental management efforts.

POLLUTION PREVENTION PROGRAM OVERVIEW

The Office of Environmental Management established a Pollution Prevention program in 1991. The Department of Energy defines pollution prevention as the use of materials, processes, and practices, including recycling activities, that reduce or eliminate the generation and release of pollutants, contaminants, hazardous substances, and waste into land, water, and air. This section describes the Pollution Prevention program's objectives, goals, status, and future directions.

Program Objectives and Goals

The overall program objective is to minimize pollutant generation and release by implementing cost-effective technologies, practices, and policies. Partnerships among government agencies and private industry are used to achieve this objective. The Department of Energy has committed to meeting the following waste reduction goals by 2000:

• Reduce the generation of radioactive, low-level mixed, and hazardous waste from routine operations by 50 percent.
• Reduce the generation of sanitary waste from routine operations by 33 percent.
• Divert 33 percent of sanitary waste from all operations for recycling.

Achieving these goals will result in significantly decreased waste-related expense that could represent an accumulated savings of over $1 billion by 2010 and of $5 billion over the environmental management life cycle. These goals should be attainable based on benchmarks from similar organizations involved with radioactive waste management. For example, the commercial nuclear power industry and the United States Navy reduced generation of low-level waste by 75 percent in six years following passage of the Low-Level Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985. Part of this reduction occurred as a result of improved volume reduction treatment processes; however, the principal reduction resulted from limitations on waste quantities allowed for disposal and from surcharges on waste generators. The Department of Energy is currently applying this industry approach by holding its waste generators accountable for both the quantity of newly generated waste and the direct cost(s) of managing the waste until final disposition. Beginning in FY 1996, selected Department of Energy sites will participate in a pilot program that will charge waste generators for the cost of disposing of their waste.

The United States Navy has documented a series of case studies in which hazardous waste generation rates were reduced significantly, sometimes up to 80 to 90 percent. Based on these results, the Department of Energy's goal of a 50 percent reduction should be achievable.

Program Status and Direction

The Department's commitment to pollution prevention is described in its 1996 Pollution Prevention Program Plan. The Department has institutionalized the program by establishing a Pollution Prevention Executive Board, an Office of Pollution Prevention within the Environmental Management program, and pollution prevention coordinators at its field sites. An important element of the program is the "high return on investment" program that funds specific pollution prevention projects that have the largest "payback" potential.

Cost Reductions from Specific Pollution Prevention Projects

The Department has sufficient information for three specific categories of pollution prevention projects to report waste volume reductions and corresponding cost savings. These are: (1) high return on investment projects, (2) waste minimization/pollution prevention projects, and (3) past pollution prevention projects.

In 1994, the Department sponsored pilot demonstrations of 13 high return on investment projects. Based on the success of these projects, an increase in funding was approved in FY 1996 for 22 projects in the high return on investment program. The Department is currently considering supplemental funding of nine additional projects.

Cost savings, total project costs, and various other data are kept for each high return on investment project. These data are used to forecast life-cycle savings through 2010, which is the useful life of most high return on investment projects. In addition, the Office of Pollution Prevention funded 26 projects (referred to in the table below as field projects) that did not meet the criteria for the high return on investment program but provided significant payback over a longer time period. Past pollution prevention projects have also resulted in cost savings. Table G.1 summarizes projected life-cycle savings over ten years through 2005 for high return on investment projects (assuming the Board approves supplemental funding), field projects, and selected past pollution prevention projects for which cost savings data are available. Because the high return on investment program is still in the early stages, most of the savings illustrated are projected rather than actual savings.

Pollution Prevention Examples

Current return on investment projects focus primarily on routine waste from Department operations. They include a wide range of simple and complicated projects and are applicable at many Department facilities. For example, a $5,000 investment in laundering rags can avoid nearly $14,000 in yearly disposal costs. Dry-ice abrasion equipment is used in a more technology-intensive project that will clean surface radiation from lead-shielding bricks. A $500,000 investment yields a one-time savings of $1.2 million by avoiding disposal of a mixed radioactive waste.

Historically, the Environmental Management program has overseen pollution prevention projects implemented throughout the Department. Although pollution prevention data were not required for reporting purposes, many sites kept track of their accomplishments. Some of these projects involved waste streams other than routine waste such as environmental restoration waste. For example, in 1994, modified procedures for soil borings avoided 150 metric tons (165 tons) of contaminated soil drill cuttings, saving $4.5 million in waste disposal costs. At Weldon Springs, the use of slightly contaminated soil as capping and stabilization materials in remediation projects elsewhere on the site prevented the soil from becoming a waste and saved about $15 million. At the Hanford Site, two liquid effluents that had been discharged to evaporation ponds were eliminated by changing equipment and modifying existing systems to save over $26 million.

Summary of Pollution Prevention Results

Currently, the projected savings from specific projects for which data are available exceeds $1.6 billion. Other specific projects for which life-cycle data are not available would increase this figure. Many of these projects can be replicated or adapted at multiple sites throughout the Department. Although there are insufficient data to extrapolate total projected pollution prevention savings in a meaningful, quantitative way, it is not unlikely that complex-wide savings could be in the tens of billions of dollars. In addition, the Department has established goals for reducing the volume of radioactive, low-level mixed, sanitary, and hazardous waste from routine operations by 50 percent by the year 2000. Achieving these goals will reduce waste management costs by an estimated $5 billion over the environmental management life cycle. Regardless of total savings, actual results and projections from specific projects are unequivocal in demonstrating that pollution prevention activities save far more than they cost. Therefore, the Department will continue to pursue pollution prevention activities aggressively because they are consistent with the Department's core values for respecting the environment, and they result in a more efficient use of limited resources by reducing site operating costs.

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Appendix -A2- / -B- / -C- / -D- / -E1- / -E2- / -F- / -G- / -H- / Glossary