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LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas — The Air Force has launched a new tool kit to promote pollution prevention, known as P2, across the Air Force. As part of its planned Air Force Earth Day 2012 commemoration, the tool kit provides new, customizable products for use at installations Air Force-wide in creating local Earth Day campaigns.
Although the initial launch was timed to coincide with the annual Earth Day, commemorated by the Air Force April 20 this year, the tool kit is intended for use year-round, said Kevin Gabos, P2 subject matter expert with the Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment and lead for the effort to create the tool kit.
“The tool kit provides outreach materials to help installations promote P2 on a continuing basis as they move toward meeting Air Force and Department of Defense strategic sustainability performance goals of eliminating or reducing pollution before it becomes waste,” Gabos said. “It includes color logos, magnet designs, several formats for banners, three poster designs and two video public service announcements appropriate for use any time.”
Conserve today, secure tomorrow is the theme of the outreach campaign, developed by AFCEE to support an Air Force initiative to reinvigorate P2 efforts worldwide.
Pollution prevention is reducing or eliminating waste at the source by modifying production processes, promoting the use of non-toxic or less-toxic substances, implementing conservation techniques and re-using materials rather than adding them to the waste stream. The Air Force-wide P2 campaign is an ongoing initiative to educate Air Force members, including active duty members, civilian employees, contractors and family members on the importance of P2 on their installations and encourage their personal involvement.
Executive Order 13514 and the Department of Defense Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan establish the P2 program framework for the Air Force. In addition to guidance, these documents set a series of goals for military services to meet in key areas like greenhouse gas management and reduction, reduction of non-hazardous waste generation, reducing hazardous material usage and improving water resources management. Specific goals in the sustainability performance plan include diverting 50 percent of non-hazardous solid waste and 60 percent of construction and demolition debris from the waste stream by 2015.
Air Force P2 policy requires installations to minimize the adverse impacts on air, water and land from all aspects of the Air Force mission through implementation of an Environmental Management System. Air Force EMS is the framework used to identify, prioritize and manage the aspects of daily operations that generate waste and pollution.
According to the latest Environmental Protection Agency statistics, in 2009, Americans generated about 243 million tons of waste annually, with the average person generating 4.34 pounds of waste per day. In that year, 82 million tons were recycled and composted, equivalent to a 33.8 percent recycling rate. On average, Americans recycled and composted 1.46 pounds of their individual waste generation of 4.34 pounds per person per day. Recycling in 2009 prevented about 178 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from being released, the equivalent of the annual emissions of 33 million cars.
Although statistics show Americans are doing better in recent years — 89 percent of Americans’ waste wound up in a landfill in1980 according to the EPA compared to 54 percent in 2008 — we still have further to go with the help of programs like P2.
For more information, visit www.afcee.af.mil.
(The full story can be found online at www.
kaiserslauternamerican.com.)
