CHEMICALS AND EXCESS MATERIALS DISPOSITION DURING FACILITY DEACTIVATION AS A MEANS OF POLLUTION PREVENTION

摘要

This paper presents several innovative and common sense approaches to pollution preventionthat have been employed during facility deactivation at the Hanford site in South CentralWashington. It also presents several pollution prevention principles applicable to other projects.Innovative pollution prevention ideas employed at the Hanford site during facility deactivationincluded:1) Recycling more than 185,000 gallons of radioactively contaminated nitric acid by sending itto an operating nuclear fuels reprocessing facility in England.2) Recycling millions of pounds of chemicals and excess materials to other industries for reuse.3) Evaporating flush water at a low rate and discharging it into the facility exhaust air stream toavoid discharging thousands of gallons of liquid to the soil column.4) Decontaminating and disposing of thousands of gallons of radioactively contaminatedorganic solvent waste to a RCRA licensed, power-producing, commercial incinerator.Common sense pollution prevention ideas that were employed include recycling office furniture,recycling paper from office files, and redeploying tools and miscellaneous process equipment.Additional pollution prevention occurred as the facility liquid and gaseous discharge streamswere deactivated.From the facilities deactivation experiences at Hanford and the ensuing efforts to dispositionexcess chemicals and materials, several key pollution prevention principles should be consideredat other projects and facilities, especially during the operational periods of the facility’s mission.These principles include:? Institute pollution prevention as a fundamental requirement early in the planning stage of aproject or during the operational phase of a facility’s mission.? Promote recognition and implementation of pollution prevention initiatives? Instill pollution prevention as a value in all participants in the project or facility work scope? Minimize the amount of chemical products and materials on hand during facility operations,in anticipation of a shutdown or abrupt end to the operating phase of the mission? Plan the final facility operating periods to minimize residual chemical products and inprocessmaterials left at the end of the mission.