Environmental Management
Posted 02-01-2012 at 07:46 AM by LookinForMayberry
My boss asked me to investigate what it would take for us to implement an Environmental Management System, based on ISO 14000.
Environmental Safety has always been a primary value in my personal code of ethics. As a native of Michigan, I grew up seeing the effects of industry and poor hygiene on what could be a pristine landscape. Our travels around the country for two years ('08-'10) reinforced my earlier observations. Americans seem to have little concern over the conditions they live in. Wherever there are Americans, there is sloth and squalor -- from slovenly farms to marred city streets, and down on their heels suburbs. The trash might be different, but it is always found.
Sadly, as I begin familiarizing myself with the precepts of getting the situation under control, I realize how much there needs to be done, and how little infrastructure exists to accomplish it.
Thankfully, as far as our company goes, we are not so challenged. Our assembly processes are mostly waste free, no emissions to affect air quality, nothing toxic about our solid wastes, and we already recycle all of the by-products of doing business. Mostly this effort will be simply documenting what we already do.
The challenge for me will be in the growing awareness my research is already providing, about our social practices. True, here in Washington's King County, we have a lot of infrastructure to facilitate the recycling of many of our different wastes (paper, metals, plastics, pharmaceuticals, food scraps, yard wastes, computers and peripherals, etc), but not all of us use them. Across the country, many areas don't even recycle their paper.
It's hard to be optimistic as each new generation arrives on the scene, more of us every day, and each with such power to harm and so ill informed to realize it. I wonder how I can find the means to stay upbeat and hopeful about this outcome. What can I do, personally, to be an agent of change?
Environmental Safety has always been a primary value in my personal code of ethics. As a native of Michigan, I grew up seeing the effects of industry and poor hygiene on what could be a pristine landscape. Our travels around the country for two years ('08-'10) reinforced my earlier observations. Americans seem to have little concern over the conditions they live in. Wherever there are Americans, there is sloth and squalor -- from slovenly farms to marred city streets, and down on their heels suburbs. The trash might be different, but it is always found.
Sadly, as I begin familiarizing myself with the precepts of getting the situation under control, I realize how much there needs to be done, and how little infrastructure exists to accomplish it.
Thankfully, as far as our company goes, we are not so challenged. Our assembly processes are mostly waste free, no emissions to affect air quality, nothing toxic about our solid wastes, and we already recycle all of the by-products of doing business. Mostly this effort will be simply documenting what we already do.
The challenge for me will be in the growing awareness my research is already providing, about our social practices. True, here in Washington's King County, we have a lot of infrastructure to facilitate the recycling of many of our different wastes (paper, metals, plastics, pharmaceuticals, food scraps, yard wastes, computers and peripherals, etc), but not all of us use them. Across the country, many areas don't even recycle their paper.
It's hard to be optimistic as each new generation arrives on the scene, more of us every day, and each with such power to harm and so ill informed to realize it. I wonder how I can find the means to stay upbeat and hopeful about this outcome. What can I do, personally, to be an agent of change?
Total Comments 0
