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Collections Policy
The Pollution Prevention Regional Information Center focuses its collection on pollution prevention (P2) information generated by P2 Providers in EPA Region 7 (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska) and on P2 topics of importance to Region 7 business and industry. The information collected includes in a variety of formats, including print, audiovisual presentations, and electronic sources (i.e., websites, HTML and PDF documents).
Documents come from a variety of programs providing services including educational, governmental and non-governmental agencies that deal with pollution prevention. Currently most of our material comes from public agencies. However, we look forward to developing relationships with partners in the private sector.
The Pollution Prevention Regional Information Center indexes annual reports, books, bibliographies, brochures, case studies, conference proceedings, checklists, curriculum, databases, fact sheets, guides, handbooks, manuals, newsletters, proposals, reports, software, technical bulletins, journals, and theses.
The EPA's official definition of pollution prevention means "source reduction" as defined in the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, but also includes other practices that reduce or eliminate the creation of pollutants through: (1) increased efficiency in the use of raw materials, energy, water, or other resources; or (2) protection of natural resources by conservation.
1– Source reduction means reducing the generation of wastes or contaminants at the source or reducing the toxicity of materials, thereby reducing releases to the environment that could pose hazards to the environment and public health, prior to recycling.
2– Pollution prevention methods include equipment or technology modifications, process or procedure modifications, reformulation or redesign of products, substitution of raw materials and improvements in housekeeping, maintenance, training or inventory control to reduce waste before it is produced.
3– Pollution prevention also includes increased efficiency in the use of raw materials, energy, water and other resources
Pollution prevention does not specifically include recycling. However, this topic is often brought up in conjunction with pollution prevention efforts. Thus, recycling information is often provided to us by many of our partners. Some recycling information will be found in our databases but our primary effort is collecting and indexing material in the area of source reduction not recycling.
Some of the terms included in the area of pollution prevention are:
Best management practices
Better performance
Cleaner production
Design for the environment (DfE)
Eco-efficiency
Energy conservation
Energy efficiency
Green business
Green productivity
Increased efficiency
Industrial ecology
Materials efficiency
Materials productivity
Natural step
Pollution prevention
Process efficiency
Process improvement
Process optimization
Reusability
Resource efficiency
Source reduction
Sustainable development
Toxic use reduction
TQEM (Total Quality Environmental Management)
Waste minimization
Waste reduction
The Pollution Prevention Regional Information Center indexes material from reputable, high quality information providers within our region. We do not attempt to evaluate the individual documents or websites but rely on our information providers to supply us with high quality products.
The publications indexed by P2RIC are for various levels of interest and audiences.
- P2RIC databases include basic educational materials intended to create an interest in pollution prevention and provide a motivation to change behavior.
- P2RIC databases include materials that help a person or business compare P2 alternatives.
- P2RIC databases include materials for P2 professionals and businesses that need P2 information to help implement changes.
- P2RIC databases include to support researchers by providing access to scholarly research in the field of pollution prevention.
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