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Source Reduction Work Team
Purpose
The Source Reduction Work Team was charged with assessing activities for waste reduction potential and researching technologies to economically reduce hazardous and non-hazardous waste streams.
Work Team Structure
Team meeting minutes (PDF, 93KB)
Since its inception in mid 1998, the Work Team has held five formal meetings. The initial Work Team planning meeting was held in Atlanta at the offices of P2AD. The other meetings were rotated among three military facilities with two of the meetings held in combination with on-site assessment visits at Fort Gordon. Future meetings will be held at a location that is central to most team members, in conjunction with full partnership meetings, or conferences whenever possible.
The first three Work Team meetings involved the development and evaluation of a survey to identify activities as candidates for waste reduction, and performing an on-site waste reduction assessment at one installation. The last two meetings were devoted to developing new team objectives. The original objective of the Source Reduction Work Team was to perform source reduction assessments and distribute the findings to the partnership for application where appropriate. The experience of using the Work Team to perform an assessment proved to be inefficient. Only two team members could effectively work on the assessment collecting data and writing the report, while other team members provided auxiliary information.
Revision of Team Objectives
As stated before, the lesson learned from the vehicle maintenance assessments project was that it was not efficient for the work team to perform assessments. Therefore, at the November 10, 1999 team meeting the team objectives were revised to allow for a more diversified and productive approach. When waste reduction assessments are to be performed the installation will need to provide an on-site team, which will be facilitated by one to two work team members. This will provide a more efficient means of collecting and evaluating data. The responsibility for writing the assessment report will be determined on a case-by-case basis. The Source Reduction team will provide a simple protocol on how to do a waste reduction assessment to assist the on-site teams. Other work team activities will be to work toward compiling a best practices handbook and database. This will allow for all work team members to participate in research and evaluation of a variety of technology to reduce waste for a wide range of applications. Revision of the Source Reduction Work Team Objectives was included in the Work Team Update (PPT, 48KB) presented at the full partnership meeting on February 23, 2000.
Projects identified by the work team at the July 12, 2000 meeting under the reorganized agenda include: research small parts paint stripping, develop a P2 assessment protocol, evaluate a non-hazardous paint line cleaner, develop a format for the best practices handbook and database, investigate use of DoDP3 listserve and DENIX for research, and writing a case study outlining the benefits of using HMMS to manage materials and waste.
Team Accomplishments
Installation Survey to Prioritize Activities for Waste Reduction
To determine what assessments to perform, a survey of DoD installations was conducted to identify activities common to many installations, with potential for waste reduction. The survey results identified vehicle maintenance, painting, and parts cleaning as high priority activities. Vehicle maintenance was selected as the activity to be assessed since it is an activity performed at most installations and incorporates parts cleaning. The team member from Fort Gordon volunteered to have the assessment performed at his installation.
Vehicle Maintenance Waste Reduction Assessment at Fort Gordon
Work team members made two on-site visits reviewing four motor pools and the central vehicle maintenance operations. The work team member from Fort Gordon collected waste stream and program data for compilation in the report by the P2AD team member. The final draft of Fort Gordon's vehicle maintenance assessment report (PDF, 85KB) was completed in June 2000 and is currently being prepared for distribution. The assessment report includes information on waste reduction methods such as: DoD re-refined motor oil program, other uses for used motor oil, program to extend vehicle oil changes, Army approved antifreeze recycling technologies, battery waste reduction programs, technology to extend battery life, and self sustaining parts cleaning. Included also are contacts of those installations using the technology as well as vendor information. The improvements identified by this assessment will be included in the best practices guide to be developed under the new team objectives.
For more information on the Source Reduction Work Team, contact Bill Vondersmith, Georgia Pollution Prevention Assistance Division, (404) 651-5120 or Bill_Vondersmith@mail.dnr.state.ga.us
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