The federal Pollution Prevention Act, passed in 1990 and signed by President George Bush in October of that year, was justified on the basis that it is far easier and more affordable to prevent pollution than to attempt to manage it or clean it up after the fact (Johnson, 1992). The legislation also presented a completely different paradigm of reduction of pollution at source, rather than the management of it (Johnson, 1992). The 1990 Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish policy infrastructure to ensure that federal activities reduce pollution at the source, collect data regarding source reduction, training on how to implement source reduction of pollution initiatives and analysis towards recommendations to Congress to eliminate those barriers which prevent the implementation of source reduction strategies (Congress, 1990). Other new activities including grants to the states for the promotion of source reduction by the commercial sector, and the submission of toxic chemical source reduction and recycling reports by relevant businesses (Congress, 1990).
Beginning in the post Second World War period there was a growing activism and awareness of the damage that would be caused by pollution. This included the publication of popular books such as the 1962 bestseller Silent Spring by Rachel Carson which outlined a possible worst-case scenario at the cause of pollution. The source of the change in framework for regulating pollution has its roots in the rise of environmental lobby groups in the 1970s (Burnett, 1998). At that time, the regulation that was in place focused on control of treatment and disposal (Burnett, 1998).
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During the 1970s and 1980s various new laws required controls on pollution, and these were fashioned using an “end of pipe” mentality, and each was media specific (Walzer & Maynard, 1993). In many cases the media specific nature of controls led to displacement of pollution (Walzer & Maynard, 1993). There was also considerable expense for companies to implement the various standards that were developed to recycle or minimize pollution after it occurred. The result was continued large increased to cumulative air pollution, affecting health and quality of life. Still, many companies and organizations who were affected by the Pollution Prevention Act. There was opposition, however it was not what might be expected. Companies did not oppose the principles of the legislation, and it was the companies who had invested the most in complying with recycling and other directives under the previous paradigm who rejected specific aspects of the law, such as the lack of recognition of recycling of toxic chemical as a form of pollution prevention (Mazurek, Gottlieb & Roque, 1995).
The pollution prevention policy draft proposed by the EPA in 1989 recognized that this would only lead to continued increases in pollution, and that was unsustainable in the long-term (Walzer & Maynard, 1993). The draft law was recycled from a previous version, which had died without passage in a previous session of Congress (Civic Impulse, 2017). The law was sponsored by Democrat Congressman Howard Wolpe, a representative from Michigan, and presented to Congress on October 25th, 1990 with his Republican cosponsor, Claudine Schneider (Walzer & Maynard, 1993). It should be noted that while President George Bush was a Republican, the House and the Senate of October 1990 had a Democrat majority (Walzer & Maynard, 1993). The bill passed the House Energy and Commerce committee, the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee and the Senate Environment and Public Works committee (Civic Impulse, 2017). It then passed in the House of Congress with an unknown number for and against the bill as the vote was taken verbally, and specific numbers were not tracked (Civic Impulse, 2017).
- Burnett, M. L. (1998). The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990: a policy whose time has come or symbolic legislation?. Environmental management, 22(2), 213-224.
- Carson, R. (2002). Silent spring. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
- Civic Impulse. (2017). H.R. 5931 — 101st Congress: Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. Retrieved from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/101/hr5931
- Congress, U. S. (1990). Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. Public Law, 10.
- Johnson, S. M. (1992). From Reaction to Proaction: The 1990 Pollution Prevention Act. Colum. J. Envtl. L., 17, 153.
- Mazurek, J., Gottlieb, R., & Roque, J. (1995). Shifting to prevention: The limits of current policy. Reducing Toxics: A New Approach to Policy and Industrial Decisionmaking, 58, 80-85.
- Walzer, A. E., & Maynard, J. W. (1993). Pollution prevention: A regulatory update (No. CONF-930205-54). Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States).
