Texas cleans up.

The Office of Pollution Prevention and Recycling (OPPR) of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) works in partnership with Texas' industries, businesses, state and local governments, communities, civic organizations and individuals to help develop practical, cost-effective and pro-active approaches to enhancing environmental quality. The OPPR's programs have been designed and implemented with the active participation of its diverse customers.

For Texas citizens, public participation programs have been implemented, including Texas Recycles Day, an annual recycling pledge drive, Texas Country Cleanup, a range of voluntary clean up and recycling events and CLEAN TEXAS REPORTER, a series of televised environmental tips. OPPR's Lake and River Clean-Up Program collected 513 tons of debris in 1996 with 23,077 volunteers. The OPPR organized 50 household hazardous waste collection events with 20,468 volunteers in 1996, collecting 512,000 pounds of hazardous waste. A total of 145,000 Texans made voluntary recycling pledges at more than 300 events on Texas Recycles Day, 1996. CLEAN TEXAS REPORTER broadcast segments reached 1.8 million Texas households in 1996.

For Texas businesses, the OPPR offers training and technical assistance programs, including the Permanent Pollution Prevention Program (P4), Site Assistance Visit Program (SAV), and a series of pollution prevention workshops. Incentive-based recognition programs for voluntary waste reduction, including the CLEAN INDUSTRIES 2000 and CLEAN TEXAS STAR programs are also offered to encourage waste reduction. The OPPR's CLEAN INDUSTRIES 2000 program now has membership of 163 of the state's 200 largest hazardous waste generating facilities, and in 1993 member facilities accounted for all of Texas' 12 million ton hazardous waste reduction. CLEAN INDUSTRIES 2000 members also sponsor 538 local environmental projects. The OPPR's P4 and SAV Programs together provided pollution prevention technical assistance to 342 industrial facilities. These facilities have conserved 1.5 billion gallons; reduced hazardous waste generation by 78,000 tons; reduced an additional 93,000 tons of nonhazardous waste, and reduced 414,000 pounds of VOCs. Participating facilities saved more than $75 million annually. The Resource Exchange Network for Eliminating Waste (RENEW) assisted 195 industrial facilities in recycling 600 million pounds of materials, saving them more than $2.4 million in avoided disposal costs.

For Texas local governments, the OPPR offers technical assistance and incentive-based recognition programs, including CLEAN CITIES 2000 and the new Solid Waste Assistance Partnership (SWAP). The CLEAN CITIES 2000 Program's 76 participating municipalities diverted 441,321 tons of solid waste from landfills, saving $13 million in disposal costs in 1996. The state's recycling rate reached 30 percent in 1997, up from 14 percent in 1991, largely through the spread of local curbside and drop-off recycling programs. The number of active recycling programs in Texas increased by 500 percent between 1991, with forty active programs, and 1997, with 250 active programs. Recycling activity in Texas reached $2.8 billion in a year in 1996, with more than 20,000 Texans employed in the industry.

The Texas/Mexico border communities, OPPR and the Mexican Attorney General for the Environment offer joint pollution prevention site assistance visits and workshops co-sponsored by state environmental agencies, universities and trade associations. A series of seven joint OPPR/Mexican Attorney General for the Environment site assistance visits to maquiladorsas in Mexico in 19951996 resulted in a 7,009-ton hazardous waste reduction and $4 million in avoided disposal costs for participating maquiladoras.

Several OPPR programs have been replicated in other states and abroad, and others are under evaluation. The Department of Defense endorsed the Texas Pollution Prevention Partnership as a model state-federal environmental project. The partnership recently won an honorable mention from the federal government's "Closing the Circle" award and took second place in the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable's MVP2 Award. Forty-two states have requested assistance in setting up events similar to Texas Recycles Day, and the Nation Recycling Coalition is implementing a nationwide version. Louisiana set up its Environmental Excellence Program based on the Texas experience with CLEAN INDUSTRIES 2000 and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has evaluated the CLEAN INDUSTRIES 2000 program as a model for a successor to its 33/50 voluntary hazardous waste reduction program. The OPPR's P4 Program has been adopted in Mexico by the Monterey Institute of Technology, the Chihuahua Maquiladora Association, the Autonomous University of Chilhuahua and the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez. OPPR's assistance to the maquiladora industry was recognized earlier this year when Dr. Pierre Lichaa, OPPR's Border Project Coordinator, was invited to Mexico City to attend the signing of the Mexican government's new environmental policy, which emphasizes pollution prevention. RENEW was used as a model for New Zealand's first waste exchange by the Auckland Regional Council, and the Texas materials exchange is under review as a possible model for a materials exchange to be developed by the British government. For more information on the Office of Pollution Prevention and Recycling, please feel free to call Andrew Neblett at [phone].