National Pollution Prevention Environmental Education Project Fact Sheet

United States
Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Pollution Prevention
Washington, DC 20460

October 1991

EPA Pollution Prevention Fact Sheet

Description

Participation

National Pollution Prevention Environmental Education Project

The U.S. EPA, working in partnership with state and local governments, industry, educational institutions, textbook publishers, teachers, and others, has embarked on a program to produce and distribute pollution prevention educational materials for students and teachers, from kindergarten through grade twelve.

The short term goal of the project is to offer students an appreciation and understanding of the potential benefits of pollution prevention, including conservation and environmentally sound recycling. A longer term goal is to instill in the country's future leaders an ethic that emphasizes integrated environmental decision-making, pollution prevention, and protection of human health and the environment.

The overall success of EPA's National Pollution Prevention Environmental Education Project is tied to the active and continuous participation by teachers throughout the life of the program. Teachers will have critical roles in:

EPA has set up an Advisory Committee to guide the Pollution Prevention Environmental Education Task Force on the development and dissemination of environmental materials and training. The Advisory Committee -- made up of about 20 members from state education and environmental agencies, academia, education associations, environmental citizen organizations, industry, and advertising and publishing firms -- will review materials as they are being developed, advocate use of the materials, and serve as a network to promote pollution prevention education and training.

Materials: Education materials will be action oriented, multi-faceted, appropriate for developmental stages, and sensitive to cultural and ethnic context. The emphasis will be on the elimination of pollution at its source rather than management of pollution after its production.

Bibliography: As a first step, recognizing that many pollution prevention educational materials currently exist and not wanting to duplicate efforts, EPA's Task Force has developed a bibliography of available materials. This bibliography contains approximately 2,500 references to pollution prevention, including source reduction, recycling, resource recovery, energy and water conservation, and composting. Individual data entries include, as available, title of the publication, author, date of publication, brief abstract, cost, and ordering information.

The bibliography is available on the electronic bulletin board of EPA's Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse (PPIC). PPIC contains databases with a wide range of prevention information -- industrial case studies, summaries of state prevention programs, national conference calendar, etc. PPIC offers the capability to add, update, revise, and sort material on the bibliography database.

Contacts: For more information, contact the EPA Task Force Co-Chairs: Rowena Michaels, (913) 551-7003, and Douglas Cooper, (202) 260-8799. For information on accessing the bibliography through PPIC, call 703-821-4800.

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Last Updated: January 16, 1996