Stretching Resources
Think about what’s in the average garbage can—junk mail, grass clippings, broccoli stems, tin cans, milk cartons? Every day, the average American creates 4.6 pounds of solid waste.1 A big part of saving the environment is reducing the amount of waste we send to landfills, and reducing the toxicity of the garbage. As environmental awareness has grown, the oil and natural gas industry—like many American households—has made great progress in reducing waste.
Through innovative approaches and new technologies, the industry generates much less waste than before: total waste generated by exploration and production operations has declined from 21.4 million barrels in 1985 to 18.1 million barrels in 1995, representing a nine percent decrease in produced water and a 53 percent decrease in drilling waste. In the Refining sector, residual wastes that once ended up in landfills are now processed and reused as feedstock. In 1985, refineries recycled about 26 percent of residuals; by 1997 this reuse had increased to 62 percent, which cuts costs, conserves energy, increases efficiency, and helps the environment.
Another environmental yardstick for waste is EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), which measures industrial releases of over 650 chemicals across 26 industry sectors. Since 1988, refineries have cut chemical releases in half — while boosting production by 12 percent. Of the 7.1 billion pounds of regulated chemicals released by U.S. industries in 2000, the oil and natural gas industry was responsible for only a small amount: petroleum refining’s share was 0.5 percent, and petroleum bulk thermals was responsible for just 0.05 percent.
1 Source: Environmental Protection Agency
|
|
|
