Published 04-18-00
Submitted by Union Carbide Corporation
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today presented Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) with its Environmental Quality Award, the highest recognition presented to the public by the agency.
In accepting the award, UCC Facility Manager Gene Reinhardt said that no Carbide materials were swept into the river during the hurricane. "However, in the spirit of Responsible Care®*, the company made a portion of its site available to the EPA for use as an operations center and a staging area where drums and containers it recovered from all affected areas in Somerset and Middlesex counties could be temporarily stored and catalogued," added Reinhardt.
During the three months the EPA was at the Bound Brook site, the agency collected more than 1,200 drums of materials that had the potential to negatively impact the environment. These materials included household wastes (detergents, pesticides, motor oils, aerosol cans and paint containers), drums and cylinders from area manufacturing and commercial sites.
"Our facility is in one of the more highly elevated areas in the community and it provided a good location for the EPA to temporarily store materials during the cleanup," said Reinhardt. In addition to a secure storage area, Carbide provided an electrical hookup to its power grid for the EPA's operations center.
This award is the latest in a series that Union Carbide has received from the EPA and other organizations in recognition of its environmental activities:
In 1998, the EPA presented its Environmental Partnership Award to Carbide for its cleanup efforts at a Superfund site in Marietta, Ohio.
Carbide and the EPA received Vice President Al Gore's Hammer Award for their partnership role in the EPA's Environmental Technology Initiative for Chemicals in 1997.
UCC's environmentally preferable TRITON SP surfactants were included in the EPA's Pollution Prevention Recognition Program in 1996, as representing "a significant innovation in surfactant chemistry, one that greatly reduces the risk to the aquatic environment."
In 1996 and 1994, the EPA recognized Carbide for achieving a 65 percent reduction in certain chemical emissions, per the goals of the EPA's voluntary 33/50 program.
Also in 1994, the International Erosion Control Association named Carbide a winner of its excellence in design award for the company's landfill remediation project at Bound Brook.
* Responsible Care is the chemical industry's health, safety and environmental performance improvement initiative. It is also the ethical framework around which member companies of the Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) operate and represents their commitment to respond to public concerns about the safe management of chemicals. Union Carbide was instrumental in the chemical industry adopting this initiative.
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