UNIT VIII SCHOLARLY ACTIVITY

MEE 5901, Advanced Solid Waste Management 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VIII Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

6. Relate leadership and management principles to effective solid waste management.

8. Solve solid waste problems through collaborative methods of problem solving. 8.1 Identify different collaborative methods of problem solving. 8.2 Relate identified collaborative problem solving methods to a given scenario.

Reading Assignment Chapter 9: Toward Integrated Resources Management – Environmental, Political, and Economic Issues

Unit Lesson For most of the units covered in this class, the focus has been on non-hazardous wastes generated from residential dwellings. In this unit, one of the focuses is on business and office complexes. Just as with residential units, these facilities generate both hazardous and non-hazardous wastes. The waste destined for the municipal landfill generally is placed into large bins in a fenced-in area and then collected or emptied by dedicated trucks. Recycling of metals, plastics, and paper helps to reduce the volume destined for the landfill, and it reduces the invoice sent to the business to cover the cost of waste disposal. Businesses and offices also generate hazardous wastes, and these need to be managed separately. 40 CFR part 261.5 of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulation classifies facilities that generate less than 100 kg/month of hazardous waste as conditionally exempt small quantity generators. These facilities are not required to get an EPA ID number provided that they accumulate and store less than 1,000 kg of hazardous waste onsite (United States Governmental Printing Office, 2011). There is no time limit for how long the accumulation period can be before the waste must be sent offsite for treatment/destruction and disposal. A common scenario for older facilities involves the updating of their florescent light fixtures where the ballasts may contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that must be handled as a hazardous waste. In addition, the small business may find that the florescent light bulbs contain mercury that also must be handled as a hazardous waste when disposed. Both of these wastes are prohibited from being disposed of at local municipal landfills, and they must be sent offsite to a RCRA-permitted hazardous waste treatment facility (e.g., Deerfield, Texas). The rules get exponentially more complex once the 1,000 kg threshold is exceeded. In slightly larger facilities, site management will likely have an Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) professional or a product steward on staff. The product steward is a relatively new position in companies, and he or she is tasked with identifying, communicating, and managing the hazards and risks associated with developing, manufacturing, selling, and identifying end-of-life options for manufactured products. In many smaller manufacturing companies, it is now the product steward who is responsible for determining the hazard classification of products as well as the environmental stewardship role of determining the RCRA regulatory status of hazardous wastes. The product steward is in a unique position within a company and drives changes in the company that will minimize or eliminate the use of hazardous and toxic substances in manufacturing processes and in product formulations. The primary function of the product steward involves assessing and classifying the hazards of the products that the manufacturer formulates for commerce. Product stewards evaluate products throughout the product life cycle from design, to manufacturing, to transport, to storage, to customer use, to end-of-life options. The product steward identifies the chemical compounds that have the potential to adversely impact human health

UNIT VIII STUDY GUIDE

Integrated Resource Management

MEE 5901, Advanced Solid Waste Management 2

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or the environment and works with research and development (R&D) to eliminate or substitute these for greener alternatives. In the past, regulators have had the greatest influence on the chemicals used in manufacturing by restricting use or by banning chemicals completely from commerce. Regulators have established chemical lists of approved chemicals that can be manufactured or imported into a country. For the United States, the EPA has established the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) chemical inventory, and in Canada, Environment Canada has published the Domestic Substance List (DSL) of existing chemicals that are approved to be manufactured or imported (United States Environmental Protection Agency, n.d.; Government of Canada, n.d.). If a chemical is not on these lists, it is deemed to be a new chemical substance in that country, requiring the chemical to be tested and registered with the appropriate national authority. There are many additional roles that the product steward has in a company. Product stewards must have a broad base of knowledge to meet the expectations of management. These include understanding regulations, transportation, adverse events that customers experience when being exposed to the product, the communication of hazards, and precautionary language in safety data sheets and container labels. Product stewards must be familiar with testing protocols, databases, regulatory filings, and the principles of green chemistry. There are two analogies that help to describe the role of the product steward in a company. The first envisions the people in the cockpit of an airplane. In older planes, this meant having a pilot, a copilot, and a flight engineer. The role of the pilot is to get the plane from its starting point to its destination. In a company, this can refer to the operations, sales, marketing, and logistics functions. The role of the flight engineer is to check on flight systems and to make sure that the aircraft is performing properly. If the fuel needs to be transferred around the aircraft to provide proper balance, the flight engineer manages this function. In a company, this can describe the roles of accounts receivable, accounts payable, finance, supply chain, and human resources. Now we get to the copilot. What is the purpose of the copilot on the plane? The reason is simple — to make sure that the plane does not crash. The copilot primarily assists and enables the pilot and flight engineer to perform their functions. But when protocols, flight procedures, or control tower instructions are not being followed, it is the copilot’s job to speak up and insist that inappropriate behaviors are brought back into line. In an organization, this is the role of the product stewardship function. If marketing is making product claims that cannot be substantiated, the product steward has the responsibility to speak up. If marketing does not correct this issue, the product steward must raise the issue up the management chain until the issue is resolved. Protecting the brand and reputation of a company is a prime responsibility of a product steward. Here is a second analogy to consider as a description of the product stewardship function. Think about the human body. The head does the thinking and sets the activities that the body will perform. This equates to the board of directors and to the executive committee and management leadership teams. The heart can represent marketing. The hands and feet can represent the sales force and technical support functions. The gut can represent the finance, supply chain, and human resource functions that ensure that the body has what it needs to operate. So what part represents product stewardship? Consider the central nervous system. The nerves run throughout all areas of the body just as product stewardship interacts with all areas of a company. In the body, the nerves help the hand to move and to grip. However, if the hand tries to twist itself into a bad position, the nerves send out a pain signal to keep the hand within an established boundary. Here are some real examples where this can happen in a company. When the supply chain wants to import a chemical from Europe, it asks the product steward if the chemical can be imported. The product steward confirms that the chemical is listed on the EPA TSCA chemical inventory and prepares an import declaration for customs, a U.S. Global Harmonization System (GHS) Safety Data Sheet (SDS), and container label once the container enters the U.S. When sales wants to export a product to Australia, it asks if this is allowed. The product steward checks to determine if the components of the product are on the Australia Inventory of Chemical Substances (AICS) and that the U.S. Department of Commerce does not have an export licensing requirement. However, when marketing wants to make a claim that the product will not harm the environment, then product stewardship must challenge when data does not exist to support this claim. Product stewards are both facilitators and enforcers that require a company to operate within an established boundary. When a boundary is crossed, the product steward must forcibly bring the company back to an agreed norm so as to protect the company's reputation. It only takes one person or business function acting

MEE 5901, Advanced Solid Waste Management 3

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

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as a loose cannon to destroy the reputation and market position of a company. Recall how the tobacco industry ignored scientific research showing that smoking can lead to cancer. It cost them their reputation and more than $52 billion in fines (“Master Settlement Agreement,” n.d.).

References Government of Canada. (n.d.). Domestic substances list. Retrieved from https://ec.gc.ca/lcpe-

cepa/default.asp?lang=En&n=5F213FA8-1 Master settlement agreement. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://web.archive.org/web/20080625084126/http:/www.naag.org/backpages/naag/tobacco/msa/msa- pdf/1109185724_1032468605_cigmsa.pdf

United States Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.) TSCA chemical substance inventory. Retrieved from

https://www.epa.gov/tsca-inventory United States Governmental Printing Office. (2011). Code of Federal regulations: Title 40 protection of

environment. Retrieved from https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2011-title40-vol26/pdf/CFR- 2011-title40-vol26.pdf

Suggested Reading Life cycle management and sustainability are two issues that are important to every company. The resource below provides great information on these topics and how businesses around the world are addressing them. United Nations Environment Programme. (n.d.). Life cycle management: How business uses it to

decrease footprint, create opportunities and make value chains more sustainable. Retrieved from http://www.unep.org/pdf/DTIE_PDFS/DTIx1208xPA-LifeCycleApproach- Howbusinessusesit.pdf

Learning Activities (Non-Graded) Practice the skills learned in this unit by completing the following activity:

1. Review the suggested reading assignment describing product life cycle and value chains. Recall that supply chain is upstream and demand chain is downstream and includes end-of-life disposition. Value chain describes both supply chain and demand chain (how the product grows in value as it passes through different stages in commerce).

2. Consider a corrugated cardboard container (box) that could be manufactured by WestRock in the

U.S. Outline the different stages in the life cycle of the container from the harvesting of trees to the used box being recycled back to the mill where the fiber is reused to produce new containers. Identify how the environment is affected at each step. Make a recommendation for each step as to how the potential environmental impacts can be mitigated. After completing your evaluation and after making your recommendations, how do you assess if the added costs and efforts that you propose will produce real benefits to the environment?

Non-graded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information.