WASTE REDUCTION, WOMEN, HEALTH

Karline K. Tierney

189 North Street
Ridgefield, CT 06877
U.S.A.

WASTE OF RAW MATERIALS AND PRODUCT IN THE WORK PLACE IS A MAJOR CAUSE OF:

• Environmental pollution;
• Poor worker health and therefore poor worker productivity;
• Inability of the manufacturer to compete due to inefficiency;
• Depletion of the availability of raw materials (waste of the nation's resources).

• National policy to reduce waste, which requires manufacturers to cut waste by a specified percentage each year for ten years;
• Removal of any policy which allows pollution emissions to be "purchased"; -
• National policy with accompanying laws which requires safe disposal for all hazardous waste that cannot be re-used. Disposal must be appropriate to the type of waste;
• National policy to protect worker health, with laws appropriate to the manufacturing process;
• Laws which control all emissions to the air, land and water.

• Stop leaks in all equipment;
• Condense gases going to the atmosphere and recycle to the process;
• Return liquid waste to the process;
• Use by-products - make them into something to sell;
• Stop using water to wash away spills of raw materials or product - collect material and return to the process.

• Press government to enact the above policies and laws;
• Form a company of unemployed women engineers and scientists to show manufacturers how to save money by reducing waste, using the examples provided in the presentation and those they devise;
• For help in forming a company contact the Alliance of American and Russian Women, Moscow office TEL: 287-6083.

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