Pollution Prevention: Clearing the Air: Industrial Ecology and Pollution Prevention
In the years following the first Earth Day and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, regulatory goals focused on "end-of-pipe" solutions to capture and treat waste before it contaminated the environment, but did little to address...
Pollution Prevention: Bridging Troubled Water: Pollution Prevention: Past, Present and Future
In terms of measurable impact and effectiveness, the federal Clean Water Act has been the most successful piece of environmental legislation in U.S. history. For companies thinking of investing in pollution prevention, the key is in balancing the c...
Physical Treatment Technologies: Filtration
Filtration is one of the most common techniques for physical separation, and is used to remove solids from both gaseous and liquid streams. It is frequently used in the treatment of waste water.
Physical Treatment Technologies: Vapor Pressure: Evaporation Ponds, Air Stripping and Distillation
The physical property known as vapor pressure is the tendency of a material, at a given temperature, to turn into a gas. Substances with a higher vapor pressure will change into a gas more quickly than substances with a lower vapor pressure. These...
Physical Treatment Technologies: Microfiltration and Reverse Osmosis
Microfiltration and reverse osmosis are barrier filters that have the smallest pore sizes utilized. These techniques are heavily dependant on supplementary pressure to force the waste stream across the barrier. After the larger particles have been...
Physical Treatment Technologies: Adsorption
Adsorption is a process that may be considered as either a chemical or a physical treatment method. The forces that hold the adsorbed substance to the surface of an adsorbing material are chemical, but the material itself can be recovered in its or...
Physical Treatment Technologies: Physical Treatment Processes
Physical treatment technologies often provide the initial and most efficient form of treatment, but do not actually transform or destroy the waste. Physical treatment processes often rely on natural forces to do the work.
Introduction to Waste Stream Management: Pollution Prevention
Recycling industrial materials that would otherwise require treatment or landfilling is known as resource recovery and is part of an emerging area of pollution prevention. Some wastes are converted directly into useful energy in municipal waste-to-...
Physical Treatment Technologies: Waste and Emissions Standards
In the past, when the waste load was light, nature's ways of purifying itself were sufficient. However, the amount of waste generated by contemporary society has overburdened these restorative powers. As a result, regulations now control the quant...
Thermal Treatment Technologies: Thermal Destruction
Since ancient times, the burning of waste has been a common practice. Unfortunately, incineration as generally practiced created serious environmental problems. Today, however, thermal treatment technology has demonstrated its ability to reduce bo...