Region 5, GLRPPR (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin)

From National P2 Results Data System

The Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR) formalized by drafting of a mission and charter statement in 1994. The statement ensures information sharing, issue discussion and program development among member organizations to be primary goals. Funding to support GLRPPR's Executive Director and member services is provided by USEPA Region 5.

Request for Revisions/Additions to the P2 Results Data System

U.S. EPA Region 5

Submitted by the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (GLRPPR), June 2007

Based upon feedback obtained from training session participants and discussions with members of the regional measurement task force, Region 5 would like to request the following revisions to the P2 Results Data System and measures to incorporate into its module:

• Currently you can enter data by project, but you cannot run reports by project. The ability to run reports by project will hopefully be added in the near future. (Done; Note however, that it is not obvious to the user how to generate reports by project. Under “View Reports” there are options for the regional report, the overall program report, and reports by date. To view reports by project, you have to go to the program admin area and under “Report/Highlights” select “report” next to “Previous Project.” This takes you to a list of projects entered under a given program’s account, each with a report available. This is not at all intuitive for the user. We suggest adding a “By Project” option under the “View Reports” section of the main menu.)

• We would like to see the ability to run projects by date range added. (Done.)

• We would like to have the ability to report costs and savings reported by clients for all metrics (i.e. override cost calculators when actual reported data is available).

• We would like the system in general to allow the substitution of state specific cost calculators for the national cost calculators if such regional cost calculators are available.

• We would like to add a field to record the time (in minutes) to compile and enter data for each user. This will allow the individual programs to assess the use of this system for tracking versus other measurement tracking systems and the ease of entering data into this system.

• We would like to request the following mercury specific fields be added to those currently available on the input form:

Activity Measures

• Under “P2 Information Developed,” add a field for “Number of mercury-related documents developed.” This would be a subset of the total of “P2 Information Developed,” so it would be important to distinguish between the two to avoid double reporting.

• Under “P2 Information Distributed,” add a field for “Number of mercury-related documents distributed.” This would be a subset of the total of “P2 Information Distributed,” so it would be important to distinguish between the two to avoid double reporting.

• Under “Awards Programs,” add a field for “Number of applications for mercury-related awards programs.” This would be a subset of the total of “Number of applications” for awards programs, so it would be important to distinguish between the two to avoid double reporting. [An example of a mercury-related awards program would be H2E’s Making Medicine Mercury Free Awards (see http://cms.h2e-online.org/ee/hazmat/reducing-hazardous-materials/#step10).]

• Add a field for “Mercury Pledge Programs.” This would be any program implemented with the stated goal of gaining voluntary commitments to reduce mercury use in a given arena or process. [An example would be IDEM’s Mercury Thermostat Reduction and Recycling Pledge Program (http://www.in.gov/idem/your_environment/mercury/hvac/index.html)

. The number recorded would be “Number of participants.” There are also mercury-free school and health care facility programs in the region.]

Outcome Measures

• We would like to be able to separate mercury-related inputs from other hazardous materials. We suggest changing the heading “Hazardous Materials” to “Hazardous Materials (Except Mercury and Mercury Compounds)” and adding the heading “Hazardous Materials (Mercury and Mercury Compounds).” The same fields should appear under this new heading as do under the existing “Hazardous Materials” (reduced use, initial cost, etc.). However, because mercury can be toxic at such low levels, it general may be of interest or more feasible in some case to report amounts in units smaller than “pounds/year.” For the mercury-related “reduced use” field, we would like there to be a choice of units—either “grams/year” or “pounds/year,” if this is possible. See also the third point under this heading regarding “initial cost.”

• We would like to see a similar distinction between “Hazardous Wastes (Except Mercury and Mercury Compounds)” and “Hazardous Wastes (Mercury and Mercury Compounds).” Under “Hazardous Wastes (Mercury and Mercury Compounds)” we would like to have the same three fields already available under the existing “Hazardous Wastes” category [reduced generation with a choice of units of grams/year or pounds/year; initial cost in dollars (or unknown—see next bullet point) and description] plus two new fields: “Amount collected at collection events” (in a choice of “pounds/year” or “units,” which may be more feasible when collecting items like thermostats) and “Number of collection events.”

• Some regional account holders have expressed a desire to be able to list “Unknown” in the various “initial cost” fields for outcome measures. Currently, this field shows “$0” as the default. Realistically, initial costs may be unavailable or truly not known, which is different than saying the initial costs were zero. Not having “unknown” as an option for “initial costs” can give an impression that savings are greater than they actually are. It may not be feasible to add this option to the system, in terms of wanting to be able to add totals across the region and the nation for cost savings, but at the very least, there should be a caveat in the reports listed next to “initial costs” and “savings” about the fact that in many cases, initial costs are actually unknown how to interpret the “savings” field. This caveat would apply wherever “initial costs” are listed (under non-hazardous materials, hazardous materials, hazardous wastes, reduced releases, solid waste, energy, green energy, water use and water pollution).

• Under “Reduced Releases” in the “Air Emissions” category, we would like to separate mercury emissions from other “Toxic Air” emissions (according to the P2 Results Data System User’s Manual, “Toxic Air” includes, among other things, CAA 112(b) HAP, and that category of emissions includes mercury compounds). For our regional module, we would like “Toxic Air” changed to “Toxic Air (Except Mercury and Mercury Compounds)” and add a field for “Mercury and Mercury Compounds” similar to those already existing for CO2 and other pollutants. Again, having a option to choose the units (grams/year vs. pounds/year) for the mercury-related field would be desirable if possible.

• Under “Reduced Releases” in the “Water Pollution” category, we would like to distinguish between mercury and mercury compounds and other toxics. We suggest changing “Toxics” to “Toxics (Except Mercury and Mercury Compounds)” and adding a field for “Mercury and Mercury Compounds.” Again, having a option to choose the units (grams/year vs. pounds/year) for the mercury-related field would be desirable if possible.