November 6, 2006—The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave awards recently to 61 organizations that have contributed significant efforts in reducing and recycling materials, and reducing or eliminating priority chemicals in products and waste, including lead, mercury and cadmium.
The organizations, including utilities, schools, electronic and chemical companies, and consumer product manufacturers, among others, are members of the EPA’s National Partnership for Environmental Priorities (NPEP) or WasteWise programs.
EPA gave awards to 25 NPEP members for reducing or removing significant priority chemicals, such as those noted above. The partners’ combined efforts reduced or eliminated 144 pounds of dioxin, 4,335 pounds of PCBs, 26,750 pounds of mercury, and more than 1 million pounds of lead, says EPA.
Partners reduced or removed lead in automotive components, glass tubing, fluorescent lights, filters, wire, and cable products, automotive lighting, printing plates and cylinders, PVC compounds, and cathode ray tubes. One NPEP partner reportedly recycled 66,000 mercury-containing bulbs.
EPA also gave awards to 36 WasteWise partners who used innovative and traditional methods to eliminate nearly 16 million tons of materials this year. By decreasing the demand on raw materials through waste reduction, WasteWise partners are also reducing their impact on global climate change, says EPA.
Several partners are reusing items that would have otherwise been thrown out, including lab equipment, clothing, and boiler ash, says EPA. Others have initiated programs that increased recycling awareness, letting people know that recycling goes beyond newspapers and aluminum cans. In some cases, WasteWise partners totally altered their production processes to substitute recovered materials or reduced the amount of raw materials they used in their products, reports EPA.
