Unfortunately, as of 2007, approximately half of the rivers, lakes, and bays
under EPA protection are still not safe enough for fishing and swimming.
Technology-based standards have been relatively successful because they
apply to specific sources and are enforceable. The health-based and water-
quality-based standards, which focus on specific toxins and the quality of
specific bodies of water, respectively, leave much to be desired and are diffi-
cult to enforce. Non-point source pollution — usually diffused runoff from
farms, streets, and yards — is the most important remaining cause of these
problems; oversights prevented it from being addressed in the original Clean
Water Act.
To help municipalities create wastewater treatment plants capable of meeting
its standards, the Act provides for federal financial assistance in the form of
construction grants. The Act also established pretreatment requirements for
industrial users contributing wastes to Publicly Owned Treatment Works.
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)......................
Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE, European Community
directive 2002/96/EC) was created to contend with the rapidly swelling
mounds of electrical and electronic equipment in states of all members
of the European Union (EU). The directive complements EU measures on
landfill and the incineration of waste. Together with Reduction of Hazardous
Substances (RoHS, Directive 2002/95/EC), WEEE became European law in
February 2003, establishing collection, recycling, and recovery targets for all
types of electrical goods. If your company is working with one or more mem-
bers of the EU, it will affect your business.
This directive holds manufacturers of waste electrical and electronic equip-
ment responsible for disposing of it in an environmentally conscientious
manner, either by ecological disposal or by reuse/refurbishment of the col-
lected WEEE. All such companies should plan to establish infrastructures for
collecting WEEE such that users of electrical and electronic equipment from
private households should have the possibility of returning WEEE free of
charge. The directive requires the substitution of safe materials in place of
various heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, and hexavalent chromium)
and brominated flame retardants (polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) or poly-
brominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE)) in new electrical and electronic equip-
ment put on the market from July 2006.
206 Part III: Going Green
