Pollution Prevention
In order to maintain and improve the quality of water in San Francisco Bay, Union Sanitary District (USD) has instituted a Pollution Prevention (P2) Program to reduce the quantity of pollutants discharged from our wastewater treatment plant into the San Francisco Bay.
Our P2 program was designed to support the Federal Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. It focuses attention on reducing the amount to pollution through cost effective changes in production, operation and raw materials use.
The hierarchy of Pollution Prevention focuses on Source Control which reduces the amount of pollutants being used at their source rather than spending money on their treatment and disposal. Source Reduction refers to practices that reduce hazardous pollutants from being released to the environment prior to recycling, treatment or disposal. It includes practices such as equipment or technology modification, process or procedure modification, reformulation or redesign of products, substitution of raw materials and improvements in housekeeping, maintenance and inventory control.
Pollution prevention encourages industry to seek increases in efficiency in the use of energy, water and other natural resources through conservation.
With these goals in mind, USD identified several types of business practices, through monitoring, which contribute high levels (levels which exceed our discharge limits and/or California hazardous waste limits) of various pollutants discharged to the sanitary sewer.
Our P2 program outlines requirements and options for discharging wastewater to the sanitary sewer for the types of businesses listed at right. These requirements were implemented to reduce the pollutant loading to our wastewater treatment plant, have these businesses comply with USD discharge limits, eliminate any unfair business advantages, and ultimately reduce the amount of pollutants discharged to San Francisco Bay.
