As with many public environmental agencies, we have for years been spending lots of money on the clean-up and management of toxics. However, we all know -- at least intellectually -- that prevention/reduction strategies pay for themselves by 1) obviating the need for as many clean-ups down the road, and 2) reducing toxic exposures in the first place. To make our case more compelling, we would greatly benefit by a simple algorithm: For every dollar/pound/euro that we spend on prevention, we can save XX dollars/pounds/euros on clean ups. Has anyone seen this calculation done in the CSM or, more broadly, the environmental literature?
Many thanks, in advance.
Michael Bergman
Reducing Toxics and Southwest Region
Environmental Educator
Washington Department of Ecology
PO Box 47600 Olympia, WA 98504-7600
360.407.6243
[email protected]
An Ounce of Prevention...
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Michael,
I'm sure you've already seen this statistic - but I'll share it with the group. With Washington State's litter prevention campaign, "litter and it will hurt," we have calculated that for every $1.00 we spend on prevention we prevent 6.88 pounds of litter from being tossed. We further calculate that it would cost $3.37 to pick up that 6.88 pounds. So for every dollar we spend preventing litter we save $2.37.
Megan Warfield
Litter Programs Coordinator
Dept. of Ecology
(360) 407-6963
[email protected]
One problem is that the cost of prevention is likely to fall on an individual or corporation, while the cost of cleanup is shared among a wider group. The corporation benefits from not cleaning up, since their costs are lower and their profit better. The larger group trying to avoid the toxins benefits from spending what it takes to clean up. Court cases where polluters can be sued, are one remedy to increase the costs of not preventing, but recent anti-civil trial legislation has put limits private citizens wishing to use this approach, and the interpretations this administration makes of laws and regs has hobbled the ability of federal agencies to bring such suits. Can another way be found to make prevention more cost effective for the polluter? Some industries are now looking more seriously into recycling former waste gases and heat into energy. (one barrier to them selling this byproduct is regulations on power generation and sales)