Carolyn Nunley and Natalia Tarasova
INFORM, Inc.
381 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10016-8806
USA
FAX: 715-836-2380
Moscow Academy of Chemistry
Moscow, Miusskaya pl.,1
RUSSIA
TEL: (095) 258-78-58
INFORM, an environmental research program, focuses on examining U.S. business practices. Our goals are:
(1) to identify severe environmental impacts that merit attention; (2) to compare business efforts to reduce these impacts; (3) to explore and publicize state-of-the-art practices that businesses can adopt to operate in the cleanest and safest way; and (4) to evaluate public policies that can advance use of the most sustainable practices.
One main area of INFORM research has explored ways to tacke the growing environmental and health threats posed by industrial toxic wastes. INFORM has published a dozen reports on industry toxic problems, chemical plant operations, and preventive strategies. Our 1986 study, Cutting Chemical Wastes, provided the first public documentation that chemical facilitiess could cut generation of these dangerous wastes by 50% or more in a handful of years by in-plant changes that would reduce wastes while saving companies money.
Our pollution prevention perspectives have stimulated an increasing shift by industry from traditional expensive end-of-the-pipe waste treatment to prevention. Waste prevention related policy options identified by INFORM played a key role in shaping the 1990 U.S. Pollution Prevention Law, many state laws, and in creation of the U.S. Toxics Releast Inventory, a new government data system on plant wastes that has revolutionized public awareness of toxics problems and that is beginning to be imitated abroad.
An INFORM research manual published last year, Preventing Industrial Toxic Hazards, spells out step-by-step how NGOs and government officials can effectively examine local plants and assess pollution prevention options. It is now widely used in the U.S. and increasingly elsewhere.
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