Pollution Prevention: Clearing the Air: Case Study: Alternative Dry Cleaning Solvents
Like many other neighborhood businesses, such as the local bakery, auto body shop and photo finishing lab, dry cleaners nearly always have fewer than 20 employees. And yet, like these other small businesses, dry cleaner..
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 environme..
Pollution Prevention: Clearing the Air: Reformulated Gasoline
The oil industry has traditionally challenged many environmental regulations. So, in 1989, when California's South Coast Air Quality Management District proposed sweeping changes that would lead to the elimination of ga..
Respecting Planet Earth
Former Sierra Club president David Brower talks about some of the ways humans have damaged planet Earth in the quest for material possessions and wealth. He invokes Henry David Thoreau's sentiment that there's no use for..
Running Out of Energy
Paul Ehrlich, best known for his work on population growth, explores the issue of energy and availability of fossil fuels. According to Dr.Ehrlich, the biggest threat posed by reliance on such fuels is not running out of..
Species Loss and Environmental Problems
Paul Ehrlich, best known for his work on population growth, observes that species and diversity loss is the most irreversible of our environmental problems and should be getting much more attention.
Sustaining the Earth: Case Study: Eco-Village
An examination of a sustainable community called Eco-Village in Ithaca, New York. This community strives to create a human habitat more in harmony with natural processes in which a sustainable lifestyle can be achieved i..
Sustaining the Earth: Case Study: Industrial Symbiosis
An examination of a symbiotic industrial arrangement among four industries in Denmark in which the wastes from one industry provide the raw materials for another. This kind of planned cradle to grave management of resour..
The Chemical Industries: Borax Production and Environmental Considerations
The valuable mineral borax was discovered in California's Death Valley in 1882. Today, fifty percent of the world's commercially produced borax comes from the Mojave Desert near Boron, California. Borates are used in h..
The Chemical Industries: Polyester Manufacturing
Most people commonly associate polyester with clothing but, in fact, the bulk of polyester resins is used to make reinforced plastic products. Polyester is a vital component in plastics which require strength and durabi..