10. Government Regulatory Development for Sustainability Engineering

In 1970, things in the USA came to a critical mass regarding the need for environmental regulatory intervention. So many major publicized events took place that the past environmental damage caused by unregulated practices of industry came home to roost and the federal government was forced to act. The ESOH regulations were needed then and now, but now they are institutionalized. I was a party to discussions regarding the question of the early 1990s that asked how industry would respond to the land disposal bans. The answer, the pollution prevention act of 1990 provided a combination of reporting requirements that industry actually met ahead of schedule. While doing so, this activity started to combine with the nascent green movement in consumerism and led industry to see the value in this new proactive environmental compliance approach that became advertisements, not complaints.