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United States

Environmental Protection Agency

Office of Communications, Education, and Public Affairs

William K. Reilly
Administrator

Lew Crampton

Associate Administrator

Charles Osolin

Director of Editorial Services

John Heritage
Editor

Karen Flagstad
Associate Editor

Teresa Opheim
Assistant Editor

Gregg Sekscienski
Assistant Editor

Ruth Barker
Assistant Editor

Nancy Starnes

Assistant Editor

Marilyn Rogers Circulation Manager

Editorial Assistance Leighton Price

Design Credits

Ron Farrah

James R. Ingram

Robert Flanagan

Front cover: Making the

recycling process complete and effective is a contemporary environmental challenge. Illustration by Robert Flanagan.

EPA JOURNAL

A Magazine on National and Global Environmental Perspectives

July/August 1992 Volume 18, Number 3

From the Editor

Re

175 N-92-006

ecycling. Millions of Americans are demonstrating their environmental concern by cooperating in recycling initiatives. Clearly, recycling has popular appeal as something real and relatively simple that individuals can do to help protect the environment.

But as is made clear in this issue of EPA Journal, recycling is a several-step process. It begins, of course, when a citizen separates out old newspapers for curbside pickup, takes bottles and plastic milk jugs to a community recycling bin, or puts empty soda cans into receptacles at work. But that is just the beginning. True recycling continues through processing collected items, finding markets, and reusing the materials in new products.

"Closing the loop," so to speak-proceeding full circle from collection to finding new, marketable uses for recyclables-is proving to be quite a challenge, and government agencies, legislatures, and companies are focusing a lot of attention on the matter. There are situations around the country where collected material has piled up, unprocessed, unused, because the recycling system has not yet fully developed-perhaps the plant is not there to process the material to the standards required; the market may not have developed for the product containing a certain recycled material; the price may not be right....

Adding to the complexity is the question, Why is the United States relying so heavily on recycling when there is another approach that might alleviate a hefty portion of the municipal solid waste problem? The approach is source reduction, which means, for example, using reusable rather than throwaway cups, so that waste isn't produced in the first place. It used to be said that the environment is a "mom and apple pie" issue, easy to support. But with recycling as an example, bridging the distance between great public concern and enthusiasm and actual, meaningful change in place for the long run-takes some time and ingenuity.

EPA JOURNAL Subscriptions

The annual rate for subscribers in the U.S. for EPA Journal is $10. The charge to subscribers in foreign countries is $12.50 a year. The price of a single copy of EPA Journal is $3.50 in this country and $4.38 if sent to a foreign country. Prices include mail costs. Subscriptions to EPA Journal as well as to other federal government magazines are handled only by the U.S. Government Printing Office. To subscribe to EPA Journal, send a check or money order payable to the Superintendent of Documents. The requests should be mailed to: P.O. Box 371954 Pittsburgh PA 15250-7954

EPA JOURNAL is Printed on recycled paper.

John Heritage

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EPA is charged by Congress to protect the nation's land, air, and water systems. Under a mandate of national environmental laws, the Agency strives to formulate and implement actions which lead to a compatible balance between human activities and the ability of natural systems to support and nurture life. EPA JOURNAL is published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Administrator of EPA has determined that the publication of this periodical is necessary in the transaction of the public business required by law of this agency. Use of funds for printing this periodical has been approved by the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Views expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect EPA policy. No permission necessary to reproduce contents except copyrighted photos and other materials.

Contributions and inquiries should be addressed to the Editor, EPA JOURNAL (A-107), Waterside Mall, 401 M Street, SW., Washington, D.C. 20460

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and we're building on that,' said Eileen Claussen, directo of EPA's Office of Atmospheric Programs. If that isn't leverage enough, the EPA is hoping that the federal government, one of the nation's largest buyers of personal computers, will require that most of the machines it buys have the energy-saving feature, she said.... The 'power management' technology called for by the EPA consists of special computer chips and the software to control them and is used widely in portable notebook computers to conserve their batteries. But the technology is used little in standard

when they're not being used desktop machines that run

.... Starting next year, computers that automatically power down, or 'sleep' when unused for a period, could have an EPA 'Energy Star' logo affixed to them, and companies would be allowed to use the logo in their advertising. 'A lot of companies these days are interested in being "green,"

off wall current . . . . It is not
clear how much the

technology would add to the
price tag of a personal
computer, nor if consumers
would be able to retrofit their
current desktop machines to
be more energy-efficient. But
Apple spokeswoman
Marianne Lettieri said, 'We
plan to make the cost
invisible to the
customer'...."

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Ongoing Enforcement Actions

Mack Trucks Penalty for Diesel Engine
Violations Valued at $323,872

Mack Trucks, Inc., will pay a
penalty valued at $323,872
for selling 177 new diesel
truck engines that were not
manufactured to the
specifications listed in an
application to EPA. Sixty-one
of the engines also failed to
meet the federal standard for
smoke emissions. Under the
Clean Air Act, prototype
engines representative of a
particular model must be
tested and shown to conform
to federal emissions
standards before the model

can be sold. The

manufacturer submits test data to EPA to apply for a certificate of conformity for the model or models in question. In this case, models were sold that didn't match those listed on the application. EPA discovered the violations during an audit of Mack's assembly plant in Hagerstown, Maryland. Mack will pay a $174,863 cash penalty and will carry out an engine rebuild test program valued at $149,009.

Chevron to Pay $8 Million for
Violations of Clean Water Act

Chevron U.S.A., Inc., has
agreed to plead guilty to 65
criminal violations of the
Clean Water Act and to pay
$6.5 million in criminal and
$1.5 million in civil
penalties. The crimes were
committed on Platform
Grace, an oil drilling rig in
the Santa Barbara Channel off
California. Chevron admitted
to several kinds of violation
of its permit issued under the
National Pollution Discharge
Elimination System. Between
1982 and 1987, samples of
Platform Grace's wastewater,
which contained chemicals

Seven Indicted in Hazardous Waste Export wxic to marine life, were

A grand jury in Charleston, South Carolina, has indicted four companies and three executives for conspiring to illegally treat, then export, more than 3,000 tons of hazardous waste to Bangladesh and Australia. According to the indictment, Gaston Copper Recycling of Gaston, South Carolina, paid Hy-Tex Marketing, located in Beaufort, South Carolina, to process baghouse dust from its smelting furnaces. The dust contained cadmium and lead. The processed dust was then shipped to a Stoller Chemical plant in Jericho, South Carolina, where it was mixed with other materials to make fertilizer. Stoller exported the fertilizer to Bangladesh and Australia without obtaining the consent of the governments of those countries.

Gaston Copper's parent, Southwire Corp., of Carrollton, Georgia, was also named in the indictment, as were three individuals: Bruce Bettenton, who participated in the management of baghouse dust at Gaston; Arthur Heinel, president of

Hy-Tex; and Robert Weaver, general manager at the Stoller plant in Jericho during the period of the indictment. All defendants were charged with conspiring to violate the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, as well as with the actual transportation of hazardous waste without a manifest. Stoller Chemical and Robert Weaver were also charged with treating hazardous waste without a permit and exporting it without consent of the receiving country. Weaver could face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $1.75 million; Heinel and Betterton could face seven years in prison and $500,000 in fines. The corporations could face up to $500,000 in fines on each count of the indictment.

The case was investigated by agents of the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, the U.S. Customs Service, the Ninth Circuit Solicitor's Office, and the Charleston County Sheriff's Office, as well as by agents from EPA.

shown to exceed the permit
limits approximately half the
time. The company could
have prevented the
exceedances by operating a
carbon filter system it had
tested earlier but chose,
instead, to use a less

expensive, inadequate treatment method. The company then diluted samples of wastewater taken for testing, concealed test results, and, in certain instances, bypassed treatment altogether, allowing raw wastewater to discharge to the ocean. Additionally, Chevron admitted to dumping sandblast waste directly into the ocean on numerous occasions, rather than barging it to shore, as required. The waste contained old paint and rust removed from the platform prior to repainting.

The four-year investigation was overseen by the Department of Justice and carried out by special agents of EPA and the Inspector General's Office of the Department of Interior.

Cold Temperature Limits on Carbon Monoxide Set for Cars and Trucks

A new rule issued by EPA requires that car and truck prototypes tested for compliance with federal emissions standards for carbon monoxide (CO) be subjected to startup temperatures of 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Currently, CO is measured at temperatures between 68 and 86 °F. The new rule goes into effect with 1994 model year vehicles.

It is common knowledge that cars and trucks use more fuel and produce more CO during engine warm up. Further, a car started at 20 °F may emit more than 10 times as much CO as the same car started at 75 °F. In winter,

when temperature inversions push cold air down and trap pollutants at the ground, levels of CO in the air increase dramatically. Currently, 39 metropolitan areas in the United States experience CO levels that exceed the federal health standard. More than half the violations occur at temperatures below 45 °F. When the new EPA rule is completely phased in, startup emissions of CO measured at 20 °F will be reduced 20 to 29 percent. In addition, the nation will conserve 43,000 barrels of oil each day by way of improved fuel combustion.

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