Land, Waste and Emergency Management Innovations
Innovations Pilots Summaries by Year
The EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) initiated a series of innovative projects to test new ideas and strategies for environmental and public health protection. An amount of money is set aside to fund creative approaches to waste minimization, energy recovery, recycling, land revitalization, and homeland security that may be replicated across various sectors, industries, communities, and regions. We hope these projects will pave the way for programmatic and policy recommendations by demonstrating the environmental and economic benefits of creative, innovative approaches to the difficult environmental challenges we face today.
2011
- Focused on three priority areas:
- Community Engagement
- Sustainable Materials Managment
- Greener Remediation
- Nine projects were selected:
- Communicating with Color – Color Coding Data and Risk at Three Region 6 Remedial Sites
- Designing Storm Water Management into Solar Arrays on Contaminated Land
- Food Donation Magic
- Getting to Zero: A Resource Management Guide for New England Communities
- Improving Access to Healthcare at Superfund Sites: Redevelopment Opportunities for Medically Underserved Communities
- Miners Engage in Idaho Mercury Roundup
- Recovered Packaging Material Database
- Recycle City 2.0
- Source Reduction 2.0: Integrating Capacity within WasteWise to Measure and Track Upstream Food Waste Source Reduction and Serve as a Value-Added Auditing and Tracking Tool for Our Partners
- Awarded approximately $375,000 to innovation projects
2010
- Focused on four priority areas:
- Community Engagement
- Cross Office/Cross Agency
- Green Economy
- Greener Remediation
- Eleven projects were selected:
- Analysis of Vapor Intrusion Data to Establish an Appropriate Perimeter Around a Groundwater Plume for a No Further Vapor Intrusion Assessment Decision
- Applying Social Marketing Techniques to Reduce Wasteful Consumption
- Catalyzing Composting in Urban Communities
- Encouraging Local Green Building Construction and Operation Through Strategic Web Resources
- Fate and Effects of Dumpsite Leachate Contamination on Alaska’s Tribal Drinking Water Sources
- Food Fight: Preventing Food Waste Upstream
- Hydrogen Fuel Cell – Alternative Energy to Power Long Term Groundwater Remedy at Bayou Bonfouca Superfund Site
- Innovative Mine Remediation in the Upper Clear Creek Watershed: Design Analysis and Construction of Chemically Enhanced Best Management Practices (BPMs)
- Mallard North Landfill Innovative Energy Production, Hanover Park, IL
- Simplified Lifecycle Analysis of Recycled Plastic in Electronics
- Sprout City South – A Component of the Smart City Charleston Program; An Innovative Proposal to Build Green Infrastructure and a Green Economy
- Awarded more than $545,000 to innovation projects
2009
- Focused on four priority areas:
- Greener Remediation
- Green Jobs
- Reduce Greenhouse Gases
- Green Labeling
- Seven projects were selected:
- Assessment of Gasification Technologies for Wet Wastes
- Automobiles and Product Stewardship: Issues and Opportunities for Material and Toxicity Neutral Personal Transportation
- Decision-Support Tool and Implementation Action Plans for Municipal Level Waste Management Practices to Reduce Greenhouse Gases
- Estimating Greenhouse Gas Reductions from Waste Prevention and Recycling: What to do when it’s not covered by WARM
- Microbial Fuel Cell Technology - In Site Bio remediation of Petroleum Contaminated Sites
- Renewable Energy Potential from Superfund Landfills
- Sustainable Products Movement: Opportunity to Advance Materials Management Principles for Resource Conservation and GHG benefits
- Awarded more than $336,000 to innovation projects
2008
- Focused on three priority areas:
- Green Remediation (Renewable Energy)
- Green Building
- Stewardship
- Ten projects were selected:
- Green Building Transit Leadership Project - BART District
- Green Cleanup Certification Program
- Green Gas Stations
- Green Remediation Tech Support at Contaminated Sites
- Sustainable Design and Green Building Toolkit for Local Governments
- Product Stewardship Institute - Research to Support National Dialog for Fluorescent Lighting
- Promoting Innovative Green Infrastructure Concepts to R5 Stakeholders
- Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Tracking of Hazardous Materials across International Borders
- Sustainable Products Movement: Opportunity to Advance Materials Management Principles for Resource Conservation and GHG benefits
- Taking the NEWMOA Beneficial Use Determinations (BUDs) Database Nationwide
- Awarded more than $470,000 to innovation projects
2007
- Focused on four priority areas:
- Restore contaminated properties to environmental and economic vitality
- Increase America’s homeland security
- Promote stewardship and resource conservation consistent with the Agency’s Resource Conservation Challenge
- Encourage voluntary efforts to clean up sites
- Five projects were selected:
- City of McAllen “Save the Greens” Resource Recycling, Recovery, and Composting Pilot Project.
- Closing the E-Design – E-Scrap Loop
- Creating a National Reuse Marketplace: A Search Engine Uniting Materials Exchanges
- Innovative Use of Recycled Materials to Increase Beneficial Use of Construction and Demolition (C&D) Debris Fines
- Project PURE: Promoting Understanding of RFID and the Environment
- Awarded more than $355,500 to innovation projects
- Grants were the method of funding
2005
- Focused on three priority areas:
- Assessing, cleaning up, and restoring contaminated sites to sustainable and beneficial use
- Reducing waste, increasing recycling, recovering energy or products from waste, fostering "green" consumer and business decisions, and properly managing waste and petroleum products
- Enhancing homeland security related to chemical emergency prevention preparedness and response
- Eight projects were selected:
- Decision Analysis Tool for Managing Industrial Byproducts
- Deconstruction and Building with Reused Materials Training
- Northwest Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E) Recycling Pilot Program for Rural Hospitals
- Performance and Sustainability of Mulch Biowalls for Environmental Cleanup
- Reusing Fly Ash to Produce a New Wastewater Treatment Chemical
- Tear-off Asphalt Shingles Recycling
- Urban Waste to Fuel Initiative
- Voluntary Reductions in Dental Amalgam Mercury
- Awarded approximately $460,500 to innovation projects
- Grants were the method of funding
2004
- Focused on four priority areas:
- Environmental protection through community revitalization
- Energy recovery, recycling, waste minimization
- Greening consumer and business decisions
- Homeland security related to chemical emergency prevention preparedness and response
- Thirteen projects were selected:
- Characterizing Environmental Contamination Through Airborne Hyperspectral Imaging
- Costilla County Biodiesel Waste-to-Energy Demonstration
- Deconstruction for Urban Revitalization
- Design for Disassembly in the Built Environment
- Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response in Smaller Communities
- Expanding Pharmaceutical Waste Management in Hospitals
- Improving Management of Household Prescription Medication Waste
- Measuring the Environmental Benefits of Federal Electronic Equipment Management Practices
- Reducing Production Costs and Nitrogen Oxide Emissions from Biodiesel
- Unidocs Hazardous Materials Online Inventory Reporting Project
- Using Auto Shredder Residue as Cement Manufacturing Feedstock
- Using Composts to Reduce Lead and Arsenic Soil Contamination
- Waste-to-Energy Geographic Planning Tool
- Awarded $704,000 to innovation projects
- Grants were the method of funding
2003
- Focused on four priority areas:
- Waste Minimization
- Energy Recovery
- Recycling
- Land Revitalization
- Nineteen projects were selected:
- Agricultural & Municipal Cooperation in Composting Green and Animal Wastes
- Brockton Brightfields, Innovative Green Power Marketing
- Collaborative Partnership to Effect Significant Environmental Performance and Compliance Improvements in the Healthcare Sector
- Collecting and Recycling Used Computers Via the Reverse Distribution System
- Creating an Integrated “Green” Parking Lot and Urban Wetlands
- Environmentally Beneficial Behavior Placement in TV Shows
- Financial Peformance Benchmarks for Recycling Businesses
- Florida Green Lodging Locator and Information Service
- Greening Industrial Design
- Groundwater Remediation Powered by Renewable Energy Sources
- Industrial Phosphate Sludge Waste as a Raw Material for Iron Phosphate Glass
- National Paint Product Stewardship Dialogue
- Potential Recycling of Medium Density Fiberboard
- Rail-to-Trail Conversion Resource Guide
- Retail Buyer Training on Recycled-Content Products
- Small Scale Anaerobic Digester
- Testing Chemical Management Services in Secondardy Schools, Colleges, and Universities
- Testing the Environmental Results Program for Underground Storage Tanks
- Unified Phase Assessment for Site Assessments
- Awarded more than $749,000 to innovation projects
- Grants were the method of funding
2002
- Focused on three priority areas:
- Revitalization
- Energy Recovery
- Waste Minimization
- Twelve projects were selected:
- Assisting Facility Decontamination in the Wood Preserving Industry
- Biomass Energy Conversion Study
- Building Deconstruction and Reuse
- Developing of a Policy to Facilitate the Use of Drum Top Crushing Devices for Fluorescent Lamps
- eCommerce Packaging and Shipping Design
- Effectiveness of Cell Phone Reuse, Refurbishment, and Recycling Programs
- Entering Institutional Controls into One-Call Systems
- Innovative Multi-Media Environmental Curriculum Pilot
- Integrated Tribal Environmental Management Center
- Sustainable Transit Leadership
- Testing the Viability of Converting Wood Pallet Waste-to-Flooring
- University Food Waste Composting
- Awarded about $525,000 to innovation projects
- Grants were the method of funding