Sustainable Development and Society - GSA

Sustainable Development and Society
Summary
The Pollution Prevention Act clearly states
that prevention of pollution at the source is
to be the primary policy goal of
environmental management in this country.
Continued focus on technology-based
control standards that react to hazardous
waste and emissions prevents us from
looking more broadly to define different
“environmental media,” including the work
environment. This can shift risks from one
medium to another.
In order to reach our goal of sustainable
development, we should promote a more
holistic approach to protecting human
health, from government regulation that
encourages innovation in technology,
design, processes and products to industrial
policy setting. The critical task is to include a
broader group of stakeholders, that is, those
who are affected by the results of this
innovation, including workers. Integrating
environmental objectives with occupational
concerns and vice versa could effectively
result in a process where standard-setting is
accomplished with the joint cooperation of
managers and workers in industry, of
authorities in government, and of the public.
From the “Journey to Sustainability:
A Converstion With Ray Anderson ” 12
“[We need] to be sure that whatever we do emit from our
factories, from our offices, from our automobiles, from
our homes… is harmless, totally benign and harmless to
the biosphere.
“That is incredibly difficult to do in this society because so
much of what comes into our factories, into our homes,
into our offices, is replete with materials that never, ever
should have been taken from the earth's crust. It took
nature 3.8 billion years to put some of it there .In its
presence, we never would have evolved into homo sapien
sapiens, but now we're bringing that very stuff right into
our living rooms, so to speak. It's very much suicidal.
“And we must learn to think upstream, and put the filters
not only into the pipe, but put the filters into our brains
and go upstream and stop that stuff. Find the substitutes
that enable us to operate without the really dangerous
stuff that we are bringing into our factories, our homes,
and our offices. “
Notes:
1. US EPA, 1989 (January 26): Pollution Prevention Policy Statement, Federal Register, vol. 54, no. 16.
2. T. Jackson, ed., 1993. “Clean Production Strategies, Developing Preventive Environmental Management in the Industrial Economy” (Boca Raton, Lewis Publishers).
3. The problem of pollution is directly related to the materials cycle. Changes in the materials cycle are transitional in that toxics reduction is perceived as being easier
to achieve than elimination. While focus on “toxics use reduction” allows for the realization that harmful substances may be used in manufacturing and may be present
in the products themselves, it leads to the goal of true prevention by focusing on what materials are used to produce goods and services. Hirschhorn et al., 1993:
“Towards Prevention: The Emerging Environmental Management Paradigm,” chapter 7 in “Clean Production Strategies: Developing. Preventive Environmental
Management in the Industrial Economy” (Boca Raton: Lewis Publishers.
4. Hirschhorn, et al.
5. Moure-Eraso R. 2000, “Avoiding the Transfer of Risk: Pollution Prevention and Occupational Health,” in: Levy, B. Wegman, D. Editors, “Occupational Health,
Recognizing and Preventing Work-Related Disease and Injury,”4th Ed., Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia, PA. Pgs. 124 - 125.
6. Michael P. Wilson, PhD, 2001 (November 16): n-Hexane–Related Peripheral Neuropathy Among Automotive Technicians—California, 1999–2000, CDC MMWR Weekly
50 (45): 1011–13. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5045a3.htm.
7. Occupational Training and Education Consortium (OTEC), 2002 (September): Pollution Prevention E/HS Workbook, 1st ed. (Camden / New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers
University). Contact: oshep@rci.rutgers.edu
8. For a more detailed evaluation of the differences between OSHA and EPA, and the barriers to integrating the protection of occupational and environmental health,
see Armenti, Moure-Eraso, Slatin, and Geiser, 2003: Joint Occupational and Environmental Pollution Prevention Strategies: A Model for Primary Prevention, New
Solutions, vol. 13, no. 3..
9. Matt Gillen, MS, CIH, 2000 (November): “What Occupational Health and Environmental Specialists Need to Know to Protect Workers and the Environment.”
Presented at the American Public Health Annual Meeting, Boston MA.
10. For a more detailed discussion on worker involvement in P2, see M. Ochsner, 2001 (Summer): Can Workers Participate in—and Benefit from— Pollution
Prevention? Pollution Prevention Review;; and Cora Roelofs, 1999: Trade Unions and Cleaner Production: Perspectives and Proposals for Action, New Solutions, vol. 9,
no. 3..
11. Matt Gillen, MS, CIH, 2000 (November): “What Occupational Health and Environmental Specialists Need to Know to Protect Workers and the Environment.”
Presented at the American Public Health Annual Meeting, Boston MA.
12. Full transcript is available at www.gsa.gov/sustainabledevelopment.
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