Director’s Column – From the Source – Winter 1998

One of the Pollution Prevention Assistance Division’s guiding philosophies is to serve as a catalyst organization for action among various organizations that have common pollution prevention problems of interest. P2AD is currently acting as a catalyst in a number of different partnerships, both formal and informal. These partnerships allow us to effectively extend our technical assistance “reach”, and help us to maximize the use of existing Georgia resources. Many of you have read in past issues about P2AD ‘s partnerships with university groups. I think you will find ample evidence in this issue of the newsletter that the Division is continuing to seek out suitable partnership opportunities whenever possible.

Department of Defense

You will find described on page 1 of this issue a new partnership between P2AD and the various military services within the state. The military is increasingly viewing pollution prevention as its preferred approach for all environmental activities. P2AD and its university partners will provide coordinated pollution prevention assistance to the Georgia military installations, and will facilitate communication among the different services regarding pollution prevention. The services will help P2AD by providing information on military waste reduction and recycling projects that are suitable for technology transfer to the private sector. These are just a few examples of potential DOD partnership activities. We are looking forward to a long and profitable partnership with Georgia’s military services.

VOAP

Another new partnership for P2AD is our involvement with the Voluntary Ozone Action Program (VOAP). This program is administered by the Environmental Protection Division, and its purpose is to help state government agencies and private businesses to change or even eliminate ozone-producing activities during the summer months. P2AD will be participating in the program by providing information on low-VOC technologies to agencies or businesses that request it, and also as a participating state agency that must alter certain activities during ozone season. See the article on page 6 for more information.

Research and Technology Development

The feature article in this newsletter focuses on P2AD’s efforts to identify pollution prevention research needs, and to then facilitate projects to address these needs. Locating possible research funding sources, providing help in writing proposals for funding, and contributing administrative support for projects are all ways that P2AD can assist in the development of new waste reduction technologies. In the past the Division has participated in several successful research ventures (see page 1 of this newsletter for an example), and we plan to participate in more as possibilities arise.