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Welcome to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Pollution Prevention (P2) newsletter! Through this newsletter, we will provide information on upcoming events, as well as tools and resources to help implement and improve P2 initiatives. |
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Upcoming Webinars
EPA Webinars
Regional Roundtable: P2 in Distilleries and Wineries
December 7, 2020, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM EST
Register Now
Join the Environmental Protection Agency in Regions 3 and 4 for a Regional Roundtable focused on Pollution Prevention (P2) in distilleries and wineries. This Roundtable will feature EPA P2 grantees who are working in these sectors and would like to share initiatives, tools, and case studies to advance Pollution Prevention. The panel will then be opened to audience questions and contributions.
Objective
Technical assistance providers and industry counterparts will share initiatives, tools and case studies to advance Pollution Prevention (P2) in the distillery and winery sectors.
Speakers
- Mark Valencia, Environmental Scientist, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation
- Robyn Whitted, Program Coordinator and Pollution Prevention Specialist, Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection
- Mark Toda, Sr. Sustainability Engineer, Kentucky Pollution Prevention Center (KPPC)
- Samantha Gordon, Sr. Sustainability Engineer, Kentucky Pollution Prevention Center (KPPC)
- Keith Goossen, Professor, University of Delaware
- Adrian Mobilia, Owner, Salted Vines Vineyard & Winery
Your Suppliers' Impacts Are Your Impacts Too: Opportunities to Prevent Pollution through Procurement
December 10, 2020 2:00 PM-3:00 pm EST
Register Now
Pollution Prevention Technical Assistance Programs, or P2 TAPs, know the importance of understanding their client’s key environmental impacts – or “hotspots.” But what if some of the most significant impacts are not in the facility itself but driven by procurement? From batteries to boxes to buildings, the products and services purchased by manufacturers/processors have vast supply chains with their own environmental impacts. This webinar will explore tools and resources to understand & prioritize your clients’ supply chain impacts AND to identify and use robust product/service sustainability specs, standards, ecolabels to address them. Presented by EPA’s Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program and Sustainable Materials Management Program.
Speakers:
- Alison Kinn Bennett, U.S. EPA, EPP, OPPT
- Jarrod Bridge, U.S. EPA, ORCR
Remote Technical Assistance Assessments During COVID and Beyond
December 14, 2020, 1:00 PM-2:00 PM EST
Register Now
The ability to provide technical assistance, voluntary or regulatory, during this pandemic has been challenging, and remote assessments and assistance are a viable approach when in-person site visits are not feasible or practical. EPA, Massachusetts Office of Technical Assistance (OTA) and Pollution Prevention Resource Center (PPRC) will discuss protocols, best practices, and lessons learned, for conducting remote assessments, along with brief examples of challenges and successes.
Objectives
- Share best practices, resources, and tips for conducting remote technical assessment
- Begin building a networking community of providers
- Discuss what works and what doesn’t
- Provide the space for an open dialogue
Speakers
- Michelle Gaither, Industrial Engineer, Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center (PPRC)
- Jack Illingworth, Environmental Analyst, Massachusetts Office of Technical Assistance
- John Raschko, Ph.D., Sr. Engineer, Massachusetts Office of Technical Assistance
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Did You Know?
EPA Region 5 recently hosted a webinar featuring the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s (UW-Madison) recently completed food and beverage pollution prevention (P2) work. The webinar provided attendees with:
- An overview of the sources of emissions of ammonia from the industrial refrigeration systems commonly used in food and beverage processing facilities;
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A summary of refrigerant inventory determination methods for industrial ammonia systems, including an Ammonia Inventory Calculator (Dynamic Charge Tool), which is a new online resource to estimate the operating charge of existing systems; and,
- The use of dynamic charge calculations for flagging refrigerant losses from systems that would otherwise go undetected. Applications of these methods, along with best practices for identifying and eliminating fugitive ammonia leaks identified during field work in Wisconsin food and beverage plants were also discussed.
The webinar presentations and recording will be available in the coming weeks. For more information, please see the EPA P2 Webinar Series page on the P2 website.
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P2 Tools and Resources
Looking for information to showcase progress in preventing pollution and encourage industry to move towards preferred waste management practices and safer alternatives? Check out EPA’s pollution prevention resources on the efforts of certain Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) sectors and facilities and highlights on the benefits of implementing P2!
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P2 Coordinator Profile
Introducing: Alison Kinn Bennett, OPPT, EPP
Alison is a Senior Advisor in EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and an Adjunct Instructor in American University’s Kogod School of Business. Alison has focused her 20+ year career on leveraging private sector innovation and billions in federal spending to support cleaner and greener supply chains for all. She co-founded two influential networks within EPA—the Green Building Workgroup and the Sustainable Products Network—which bring together policy and technical staff to advance comprehensive, market-based approaches to furthering EPA’s mission. Since 2001, Alison has served in EPA’s Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Program, representing EPA in the development of private sector sustainability standards within the U.S. Green Building Council, Sustainable Sites Initiative, ASTM, NSF, and UL, among others. Alison has also represented EPA on the advisory committees of the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council, Cradle to Cradle Product Innovations Institute, ISEAL, and the UN Sustainable Public Procurement Program. In 2016, Alison and her team released Recommendations of Specifications, Standards, and Ecolabels—bringing clarity to the sustainability marketplace. Alison is now leading a new effort at the Agency exploring innovative financing approaches for capital intensive pollution prevention projects in various manufacturing sectors.
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Announcements
EPA Announces 2020 Safer Choice Partner of the Year Award Winners
In September, EPA recognized 18 Safer Choice Partner of the Year award winners across 10 states and the District of Columbia for achievements in the design, manufacture, selection, and use of products with safer chemicals which furthers outstanding or innovative source reduction. The Safer Choice program helps consumers and purchasers for facilities, such as schools and office buildings, find products that perform and are safer for human health and the environment.
The organizations listed below are the Safer Choice 2020 Partner of the Year award winners, and represent a variety of different types of businesses, including woman-owned, and small- and medium-sized; federal and local government; and associations.
- Apple – Cupertino, Calif.
- BASF Home Care and I & I Cleaning Solutions – Florham Park, N.J.
- Berkley Green – Uniontown, Pa.
- The Clorox Company – Oakland, Calif.
- Defunkify – Eugene, Ore.
- DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences – Palo Alto, Calif.
- ECOS – Cypress, Calif.
- Grove Collaborative – San Francisco, Calif.
- Hazardous Waste Management Program – King County, Wash.
- Household & Commercial Products Association – Washington, D.C.
- Jelmar, LLC – Skokie, Ill.
- Lemi Shine – Austin, Texas
- Naval Supply Systems Command Weapons System Support – Mechanicsburg, Pa.
- PROSOCO – Lawrence, Kan.
- PurposeBuilt Brands – Gurnee, Ill.
- Sea Mar Community Health Centers – Seattle, Wash.
- Seventh Generation – Burlington, Vt.
- Wegmans Food Markets – Rochester, N.Y.
Read more about the 2020 Safer Choice Partner of the Year award winners as well as summaries of the their accomplishments.
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The P2 Hub Helpline Is at Your Service!
The P2 Hub Helpline is a technical assistance concierge service exclusively for current recipients of EPA P2 and SRA grants and their subcontractors. Contact the Helpline at p2hub@epa.gov or (202) 566-0799.
Stay Connected!
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