Making Pollution Prevention Pay. Ecology with Economy as Policy

163 Pages·1982·2.369 MB·English

by  Donald Huisingh and Vicki Bailey (Eds.)

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MAKING
POLLUTION
PREVENTION
PAY
ECOLOGY WITH
ECONOMY AS POLICY
EDITED BY
DONALD HUISINGH
VICKI BAILEY
PERGAMON PRESS
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Copyright © 1982 Pergamon Press Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry tinder title:
Making pollution prevention pay.
Papers presented at a symposium held in Winston-
Salem, N.C., May 26-27, 1982.
1. Pollution—Economic aspects—Congresses • 2. Pol-
lution control industry—Cost effectiveness—Con-
gresses. 3. Environmental protection—Cost effective-
ness—Congresses, h. Environmental policy—Cost
effectiveness—Congresses. I. Hulsingfr, Don,
1937- . II. Bailey, Vickie, 1953-
HD6*9.P6M28 1982 363.7f 37 82-1858U
ISBN 0-08-029417-0
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means:
electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Printed in the United States of America
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As editors of these proceedings, we wish to express our appreciation
to the authors of the following papers for being so punctual in sending
their copy to us and for presenting their information in a clear and
concise manner. Thanks also to Ms. Jeanne Adams for her excellent pre-
paration of the final manuscript. Her tireless efforts are responsible
for the expediency in the publishing of this volume.
We are grateful for the hundreds of hours contributed by dozens of
individuals during the planning and delivery phases of the symposium.
Their ideas and able assistance contributed much to the success of the
entire project.
Finally, we say thank you to the members of the board of the Mary
Reynolds Babcock Foundation for their allocation of funds for the
symposium and the publication of this proceedings volume.
Appreciatively,
Don Huisingh, Editor
Vickie Bailey, Editor
vii
POLLUTION PREVENTION PAYS:
ECONOMY WITH ECOLOGY AS POLICY
PREFACE
National and state opinion polls have shown repeatedly that citizens
are demanding economic growth and quality environment. Is it possible, you
ask, to have both at the same time? Many governmental, industrial and
other individuals and groups throughout society have said and continue to
say that it isn't. Many act as though it isn't.
Fortunately, increasing numbers of industrial leaders are demonstra-
ting that it is possible! The exciting truth presented in this volume is
tribute to industries that have learned, "Pollution is a symptom of using
inefficient technologies that waste resources, degrade the environment and
are unprofitable". These leaders have learned, "Pollution Prevention
Pays".
We first learned of the Pollution Prevention Pays (PPP) concept from
an article by Dr. Michael Royston of Geneva, Switzerland, that appeared in
the November-December, 1980 issue of the Harvard Business Review under the
title, "Making Pollution Prevention Pay". (Thanks to Mrs. Jane Sharpe for
bringing the article to our attention.) As the title suggests, this
article offers the forward-looking and preventive emphases that are
stressed in the following symposium proceedings.
As a result of the interest the article and a book published by
Pergamon Press entitled, "Pollution Prevention Pays" by Michael Royston,
generated among a number of state government staff, university faculty, and
industrialists, several of us decided to plan and sponsor a symposium
designed to share this information with industrial, governmental and civic
leaders throughout North Carolina and the region.
In August, 1981 we (under the auspices of Dr. Quentin Lindsey and the
North Carolina Board of Science and Technology) submitted a grant proposal
to the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation. The proposal as submitted was co-
sponsored by:
The TSCA Project—The Governor's Office and the N.C. Board of
Science and Technology
The Governor's Waste Management Board
North Carolina Department of Commerce
North Carolina Department of Human Resources
North Carolina Department of Natural Resources and
Community Development
North Carolina Department of Community Colleges
The Industrial Extension Service of North Carolina
State University
The Professional Engineers of North Carolina
The North Carolina Citizens' Association
The North Carolina Industrial Developers' Association
North Carolina Associated Industries
(Sam Johnson, Attorney)
Upon learning of the award of $25,000 from the Mary Reynolds Babcock
Foundation in November, 1981, the co-sponsors turned their efforts to
planning a 2-phase educational program in North Carolina on the concept
"Pollution Prevention Pays". Phase I consisted of a symposium on the
philosophy, technology and economics of pollution prevention, held on May
26-27, 1982 at the W. C. Benton, Jr. Convention Center in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina. The papers presented are contained in this volume.
ix
X
During Phase II, which is currently being planned with the involvement
of several dozen governmental, industrial, academic and citizen groups,
mechanisms for the implementation of "Pollution Prevention Pays" in North
Carolina will be developed and enacted.
The "Pollution Prevention Pays" effort is being designed to be an
integral component of the state plan for toxic substance and hazardous
waste management. It will support economic growth through the increase of
bottom-line industrial profits by eliminating or reducing wasteful in-
efficiency of end-of-pipe pollution control costs. Environmental quality
will be improved and a clean, healthy environment maintained, as harmful
and/or unaesthetic substances are either not produced or not released into
the environment. Finally, all of the diverse groups and individuals who
play a role in economic growth and management can focus together in a
positive and cooperative way to meet the challenge of achieving what are
most fundamentally "everyone's best interests", health and prosperity.
"Making pollution prevention pay gives industry, government and
citizens an extraordinary opportunity to work together and to trust each
other," states Bill Holman of the N.C. Conservation Council. It is with
this positive spirit that we herald in now, with these proceedings, a new
philosophy of waste and pollution prevention.
Don Huisingh
Vicki Bailey
INTRODUCTION
How many times have you heard the statement, "It is either jobs or the
environment?" The implication is that the environmental and economic
health of society are in direct competition with each other. If this is
true one must choose either jobs or the environment, or some combination of
the two.
Those holding this view emphasize that many environmental regulations
enacted during the decade of the 70's with primary emphasis upon pollution
control have been costly to implement and have yielded fewer environmental
benefits than were expected.
Is there no way out of this dilemma? Are we trapped in an eternal
struggle between economic and environmental forces? Must we sacrifice the
environment on the economic altar? Is there another way?
Fortunately, leading industries throughout the world are demonstrating
that indeed there is a better way; one that proves conclusively that
economic health and environmental health travel hand in hand. What new
secret have they found? They have rediscovered the truth in the old adage,
"An once of prevention is worth a^ pound of cure". They have found the
truth in what J.T. Ling of 3M so succinctTy phrased it,
POLLUTION PREVENTION PAYS.
This symposium was designed to acquaint industrial, governmental,
academic and private citizens with the concepts and experiences of in-
dustries from all parts of the world. Graphic evidence is presented to
illustrate that in changing from a primary emphasis upon "end of pipe"
pollution control to a system-wide emphasis upon pollution prevention the
companies derive economic benefits while environmental quality is improved.
As you read this symposium proceedings, you will be pleased to learn
that these approaches can be applied to a wide variety of industrial
applications. As Michael Royston astutely points out, "ecology" and
"economy" are derived from the same Greek root, oikos. Through pursuance
of the pollution prevention course, we can once again reunite economics and
ecology in a positive* non-competitive fashion.
xi
MAKING POLLUTION PREVENTION PAY
Dr. M. G. Royston
International Management Institute
Geneva
ABSTRACT
Pollution is a symptom of using low technologies which not only waste
valuable resources, but which are also unprofitable. All around the world
countries and companies are adopting simultaneously strategies for clean
technology and for restructuring towards higher level, higher value-added,
and more profitable technologies. Countries such as France, Japan and
Singapore make clean technology an explicit part of their national policies,
which are also increasingly oriented towards energy conservation, electro-
nics, aerospace and quality. Among companies, the prime example is 3M,
which has abated pollution in its plants worldwide, and saved over $80
million as a result. Pollution prevention does pay therefore, both in
straight financial terms, and also in terms of measuring a company's or a
country's ability to meet the challenge of a world short of natural and
economic resources, in other words, to survive.
KEY WORDS
Low technologies, higher value-added, France, Japan and Singapore,
energy conservation, electronics, aerospace, quality.
MAKING POLLUTION PREVENTION PAY
All over the world it is being realized that pollution is not just an
ecological or an economic problem. It is now seen that pollution is a
symptom of deeper problems in our economic structures.
Which are the industries which are the economic headaches of most in-
dustrialized countries? Steel? Heavy chemicals? Non-ferrous metallurgy?
Pulp and Paper? Textile? Mining? And what are the industries which are
top of the environmentalists' hit lists? Very much the same. And why is
this? Probably because these are old, low technology industries. It is
low technology which leads to low profitability, and also to low resource
utilization efficiency, ie. high waste and pollution.
What we see, then, is a valid basis for ensuring that future indus-
trial investments are characterized by low pollution, because by doing so
1
2
we are likely to encourage higher technology, high skill development, lower
energy and resource usage, and hence, high value added, specialization and
profitability.
Singapore is one of the few countries which has taken the question of
selecting clean technology seriously. Anyone visiting that city-state is
impressed by three things: the cleanliness and greenness of the city, the
happiness of the people and the evident prosperity. All this is based on a
deliberate strategy of selecting high value-added clean technology based on
electronics, optics, precision engineering and services.
Interestingly enough, this is exactly the strategy which comes out of
the analyses of over 2000 businesses by the Strategic Planning Institute in
Cambridge, Mass. Their findings suggest that the most profitable strategy
is based on producing high quality, specialized products to meet and domi-
nate a particular market niche with a high service content and a low
investment intensity; ie., using grey matter rather than black gold.
Another country which has a rather clear-minded approach to these
matters is France, with a very clear and successful policy of nuclear
energy, computers and aerospace. They have an advanced programme of clean
technology whose progress is regularly reported at national and regional
levels.
A recent survey in France showed that, of a sample of 100 companies
with clean technology, 70 involved investment less than what would be re-
quired if the pollution had been solved by adding on pollution control
equipment.
Even more interesting, in 69 cases the running cost of the clean
plants using clean technology WAS LESS than that of the original dirty
plants. So France is well-launched on the path of clean technology, hand-
in-hand with an orientation to a new industrial revolution based on micro-
electronics and nuclear energy.
What is happening in France is occurring even more rapidly in Japan.
In 1972 when most western countries were spending about 1% of GNP on pollu-
tion control, Japan was spending 6% of GNP, and was criticized by other
countries for falsifying the account and spending the money, not on good
old add-on pollution control equipment, but in subversively modernizing
their factories with new clean technology. So now Japanese industry is not
only cleaner and more profitable than before, but is also being heavily re-
structured away from producing steel, ships, copper, aluminum, pulp and
paper, etc., and towards a high value-added, electronic society in which
its large nuclear programme is forging ahead unhampered. It is not
coincidence that it is Japan that produced an automobile - the HONDA CVCC -
which can meet California air pollution standards through the use of the
stratified charge engine which also gives 20% better fuel economy than a
standard 'dirty' engine of the same power output.
All around the world it is being realized that pollution is a sign of
wasteful inefficiency and represents a potentially valuable resource in the
wrong place.
In the Guangzhou Chemical Works in the People's Republic of China
there is a chlor-alkali plant which was built over twenty years ago.
Unlike most such plants in the world, it does not pollute. All the waste
chlorine streams are collected and used to make bleaching powder which is
then sold. The sludge from the electrolysis cells is sold as filler to a
local rubber factory, and there is no mercury pollution because since its
inception the plant has used diaphram cells. In Shanghai, each year 2
million tons of building material is produced from waste materials and
every day 5,000 tons of human wastes are taken out of the city to be
converted into bio-gas and fertilizer. The late Chairman Mao Tse-tung
never talked about pollution control, he always talked of the Three Wastes -
3
waste solids, waste liquids and waste gases and the need to turn these
"wastes into treasures and the harmful into beneficial". In fact, one can
go back 2,500 years to Lao Tzu, and probably even further, and find the
same great virtue of frugality being expounded. A new look at pollution
can reveal it to be not a threat but an opportunity in the same way as Mao
Tse-tung saw a pig as a "walking fertilizer factory".
In Thailand, Kamchai Iamsuri runs an "ecological" and economical rice
milling operation which includes a 200 ton per day rice mill, a poultry
farm, a 10,000 pig farm and a fish farm of 3 million fish. There is even a
brickworks using rice husks as fuel. All the units are arranged so that
the waste from one activity becomes the feed for another. This is truly
good housekeeping, demonstrating the significance of the common root
"oikos", the Greek word for household, in the two words "ecology" - study
of the household - and "economics" - management of the household.
In Belize in Central America there is a fermentation plant which con-
verts citrus industry wastes into high protein animal feed. In Malaysia a
similar product is produced from palm oil industry effluent, the largest
single source of pollution in the country. Also in Malaysia, old tin mine
sites have been converted into recreational areas, and in the Philippines,
site of the Second World Recycle Conference, examples of turning waste to
profit abound, particularly in the conversion of forest wastes and special
fast growing trees into energy. In Tunisia, as in many countries, indus-
trial waste waters from, for example, the textile industry are recycled and
municipal waste waters are treated with algae and then used for irrigation.
All cultures used to believe in "waste not, want not". For a brief
time in the 1950s and 60s this ethic was forgotten in some of the rich
industrialized countries and they ceased to be economical in their ecolog-
ical endeavours.
Thus, while in one Norwegian pulp and paper mill in 1953 the black
liquor was evaporated and used to fire the boilers, in 1963 it was found to
be cheaper to burn oil in the boilers and dump the black liquor in the
nearest river. In 1973 with the oil crisis, the black liquor evaporators
were re-introduced.
In the Lake Tahoe advanced waste water treatment plant in the Cali-
fornia Sierra, it is estimated that more pollution is created by the manu-
facture of the equipment, chemicals and the power needed to run the plant
than it actually removes. Here the main difference is that the pollution
is removed from the expensive Lake Tahoe resort area and it is introduced
in the poorer industrial areas.
Today, with increasing costs of energy, raw materials, water and
pollution control, many companies are beginning to realize that pollution
prevention pays. This is the basis of the 3P programme of the 3M company.
They introduced this policy in 1976 based on the concept that:
Pollutants + Know-how = Potential Resources (+ Profit). Since then,
with very little investment in plant and process modification and none for
additional pollution control equipment, the company worldwide has elimi-
nated hundreds of thousands of tons of gaseous effluents, millions of tons
of solid wastes and hundred of millions of gallons of waste waters; and,
instead of it costing money, they have saved over $80 million as a result.
Industries worldwide are following this path. The United Nations
Economic Commission for Europe is in the process of establishing a compen-
dium of Low and Non-Waste Technologies. New clean technologies for the
deasphaltising of petroleum residues, utilizing steam condensates from
petroleum stripping, dry bark stripping of wood came from the Soviet Union;
an aerobic/anaerobic process for waste water treatment, refuse recovery,
iron ore smelting came from Sweden; a process for converting organic waste
into a stable fuel and mercury recovery from Spain; and as might be expec-
ted, 17 processes from France, including demineralization of beet sugar,