2.1.1 Environmental History

Environmental history is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time. In contrast to other historical disciplines, it emphasizes the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs. Environmental historians study how humans both shape their environment and are shaped by it.

Environmental history emerged in the United States out of the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and much of its impetus still stems from present‐day global environmental concerns (Chakrabarti 2006). The field was founded on conservation issues but has broadened in scope to include more general social and scientific history and may deal with cities, population, or sustainable development. As all history occurs in the natural world, environmental history tends to focus on particular time‐scales, geographic regions, or key themes. It is also a strongly multidisciplinary subject that draws widely on both the humanities and natural science.

The subject matter of environmental history can be divided into three main components (Chakrabarti 2007). The first, nature itself and its change over time, includes the physical impact of humans on the Earth's land, water, atmosphere, and biosphere. The second category, how humans use nature, includes the environmental consequences of increasing population, more effective technology, and changing patterns of production and consumption. Other key themes are the transition from nomadic hunter‐gatherer communities to settled agriculture in the Neolithic Revolution, the effects of colonial expansion and settlements, and the environmental and human consequences of the industrial and technological revolutions (Cronon 1995). Finally, environmental historians study how people think about nature – the way attitudes, beliefs, and values influence interaction with nature, especially in the form of myths, religion, and science.

2.3.1 Natural Causes

Drought, flood, tsunami, cyclone, hurricane, twister, torrents, earthquake, molten lava of volcano, and epidemic are the main natural causes/factors which cause environmental pollution. Since these are natural‐caused events and man has no control over them, they are known as natural causes.

2.3.2 Man‐Made Causes

There are four main man‐made causes:

1. Population growth
2. Poverty
3. Urbanization
4. Industrialization

2.3.3 Population Growth

“The Earth is finite and world population is finite.” Every new born consumes plenty of natural and nonnatural products, which are also ultimately provided after utilizing natural resources. Thus, every birth increases the consumption of natural resources. But the fact is a finite world can support only a finite population. In other words, natural resources shrink as people multiply. The current world population is 7.73 billion as of August 2019 according to the most recent United Nations estimates elaborated by Worldometers. The world's population has grown almost sixfold in this century (Figure 2.1). India alone has about 17% population of the world land area. This rise in urban population is at a very high rate. It indicates an increasing demand for fuel, food, pollution free clean water and air, space to live in, and healthy conditions. Increasing population in urban areas has created the problem of land, air, and water pollution, and unsanitary conditions that all cumulatively adversely affecting the quality of life. Some big cities are rated as choked cities due to polluting industries around them. Continuous rise in urban population has enhanced the density of population in various areas which has also created various social, physical, and psychological problems for people. These high‐density populated areas have also resulted in deforestation and disappearance of vegetation cover, which is only 11% of the total area against 33% which is essential. Increasing population also results in poverty which is also a cause of pollution.

2.3.4 Poverty

Poverty contributes equally to both – population growth and environmental pollution. Poverty has been defined as the inability of an individual or household to attain a minimum standard of living (World Commission on Health and Environment 1992). The poor people usually have low life expectancy, high infant mortality, and higher incidence of disablement. Unhygienic, unsanitary, and poor health conditions are due to poverty. The impoverishment of the poor is accompanied by simultaneous and systematic erosion of the basic means of their subsistence, the environment, with its life‐supporting natural resources – land, forest, water, and air. Poverty reduces people's capacity to use resources in a sustainable way, which also intensifies pressure on the environment in underdeveloped and developing countries. It is now been aptly observed that the poor and poverty are linked to the environment (Our Common Future 1987).

2.3.5 Urbanization

Rapid and unplanned urbanization has also contributed to environmental pollution and degradation of human environment. This is a direct result of rapid population growth and unending migration of the poor from small towns and villages to urban centers of developing countries. The burning of coal and wood in concentrated areas made the cities the primary sources of pollution. Environmental factors have been given too little consideration in the thinking on urbanization in many cities of underdeveloped and developing countries. Yet they are extremely important factors to be considered with increasing urbanization. The levels of water and smog pollution are already high in many cities in underdeveloped and developing nations.

2.4.1 Mini Case Studies

Industrialization and urbanization, as a result of Industrial Revolution, began long before the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it accelerated greatly during this period because of technological innovations, social changes, and a political system increasingly apt to favor economic growth beyond any other concern. Before 1880, industrialization depended upon a prescribed division of labor – breaking most jobs up into smaller tasks, and assigning the same people to repeat one task indefinitely. After 1880, industrialization depended much more on mechanization – the replacement of people with machines – to increase production and maximize profits. The development of the modern electrical grid, starting in the early 1880s, facilitated such technological advances. Henry Ford's assembly line and the rise of mass production after the turn of the twentieth century only strengthened this effect. As a result, the total manufacturing output of the United States was 28 times greater in 1929 than it was 1859. Adjust that number for the growth in population over the same period, and it still multiplied seven times over (Wright 1941).

Cities in America date back to the beginning of the colonial period, but the tendency for new industrial factories to be located in or near urban areas meant that cities grew much faster during the late nineteenth century than ever before. This trend was most apparent in large cities like New York, which expanded from approximately half a million to around 3.5 million people between 1850 and 1900, and Philadelphia, which increased in size from slightly more than 100 000 inhabitants to more than 1.2 million people over the same period. During the last half of the late nineteenth century, Chicago proved to be the fastest growing city in the world. Overall, 15.3% of Americans lived in cities in 1850. By 1900, that percentage had increased to 39.7, and kept growing. The 1920 Census revealed that more Americans lived in cities than the countryside for the first time (Rees 2013).

Not every city in the country developed as fast as the largest cities did. Important regional differences existed in urbanization because of differences in the nature of industrial growth. The largest cities in the Northeast were manufacturing powerhouses that contained everything, from large factories building railroad locomotives to small shops producing textiles in people's apartments. The Northeast also gave rise to smaller cities that concentrated on particular industries, like Rochester, New York, which specialized in men's clothing, boots, and shoes. Following on a tradition of manufacturing from earlier in the century, New Bedford and Fall River, Massachusetts, increased in size because of their cotton textile factories. Other cities, like Elizabeth, New Jersey, grew as by‐products of the expansion of their larger neighbors.

Chicago, the largest city in the Midwest, made its name processing natural resources from the Western frontier before those resources traveled eastward as finished products. Grain and lumber – two industries that had been crucial for Chicago's early growth – relied on Chicago for marketing and storage. With perfection of the refrigerated railroad car, meat processing became such an enormous industry that the vast majority of the meat that Americans ate was processed in the stockyards on that city's south side. (That activity would disperse again, after the turn of the twentieth century, to other cities like Fort Worth and Kansas City.) Smaller cities in America's industrial heartland would grow around other manufacturing pursuits like steel in Youngstown, and machine tools and cash registers in Dayton, Ohio (Warner 1995).

The South had lagged behind the rest of the country since before the Civil War. As a result, many advocates for outside investment in this region expanded their activities after the war. They were somewhat successful. While the rate of industrialization (and therefore urbanization) picked up in the South during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it still has not fully caught up with the rest of the country. Birmingham, Alabama, for example, founded in 1871, flourished as a center for iron and steel manufacturing during the 1880s, when two railroads first linked that city to the region's mineral resources (Misa 1999). The growth of cotton mills in the “upcountry” section of the Carolinas began during the 1870s. After the turn of the twentieth century, this region became an important center of activity for the textile industry, in large part because of the available cheap, nonunion labor.

What separates this period from earlier periods in urban and industrial history is that this was the first time in American history that cities had moved to the center of American life. Cities were places where most of the new factories were built. Waves of immigrants settled in cities because that is where the job openings in industrial factories were. Cities were also places where the effects of industrialization, especially the increased inequality of wealth, were most visible. That means that the problems of cities became the problems of America.

2.4.2 The Electrical Grid and Improvements in Transportation

One of the reasons that later industrialization progressed at such a greater pace than before was the improvement in power sources. The early Industrial Revolution depended upon steam engines and waterpower. The earliest engines were large and prohibitively expensive for all but the largest firms. Water wheels were a possibility for smaller concerns, but they could not perform nearly as much work as later power sources could. Between 1869 and 1929, total available horsepower in the United States increased from 2.3 to 43 million units. In factories, the greatest part of that growth came from a huge increase in the use of electricity (Wright 1941).

Although factories had grown larger and more efficient over the entire nineteenth century, they grew particularly large after 1880, as the power to run them became cheaper, cleaner, and more convenient to acquire. Starting in the late 1870s, Thomas Edison turned the attention of his extensive laboratory toward harnessing electricity to create affordable electric light. This achievement depended not only upon the creation of an efficient, inexpensive, incandescent light bulb but also on the creation of an electrical system to power it – everything from generators, to electrical wires, to switches. Without a precedent for any of these things, the Edison Electric Company and many related subsidiaries (later gathered together under the umbrella of General Electric) had to manufacture just about everything to make the grid operate. “Since capital is timid, I will raise and supply it,” explained Edison to one of his investors. “The issue is factories or death!” (Jonnes 2004). Other companies soon followed, because creating the central stations and the grid that eventually powered just about everything was so obviously lucrative.

Symbolizing the importance of capital to Edison's efforts, the first person to have his home successfully wired for electricity was the banker J. P. Morgan, in 1882. Despite setbacks, his experience with electric light encouraged him to invest further in Edison's efforts. Edison built the first central generating station in New York City later that same year. The first area of Manhattan that Edison wired was a neighborhood filled with the homes and workplaces of those who operated the financial institutions he hoped to convince to invest in his enterprises, as well as two major newspapers that would publicize his achievements. By 1902, there were 2250 electrical generating stations in the United States. By 1920, that number grew to just short of 4000. Electricity spread from large cities to small cities and eventually out into rural areas by the 1920s (Cowan 1985; Cowan and Hersch 2017).

This kind of growth required substantial improvement beyond Edison's initial vision of an electrical system. The effects of a reliable electric grid on the cities where it first appeared were numerous, ranging from less coal smoke in the air to new sounds produced by various electrical creations – everything from streetcars to arc lights. Early arc lights were so bright people thought they could stop crime and vice by exposing the people who perpetrated these crimes. In smaller cities, obtaining electric light was a sign of modernization, which implied future growth. Modern light in urban workplaces made office work easier by lessening strain on the eyes. As electric light companies moved in, the much‐hated urban gas companies lost a considerable amount of economic power. Since people preferred electric light to gas, it became increasingly popular, as the grid expanded and the costs dropped. Electric light even changed the way people lived inside their houses. For example, children could now be trusted to put themselves to bed since there was no longer a fire risk from the open flames that were once needed to get to bed in the dark.

Nevertheless, the growing electrical grid created new urban dangers. High‐voltage electrical wires strung above ground joined other wires from telephones, telegraphs – even stock tickers – posed a new urban “wire menace.” Many came down in bad weather. They were a hazard for electric company employees and pedestrians alike. “The overhead system is a standing menace to health and life,” reported one medical journal in 1888 (Freeberg 2014). In 1889, a fire caused by overheated electrical wires ignited a building full of dry goods and burned down much of downtown Boston.

The most noteworthy effect of high‐quality, affordable lighting was the widespread practice of running factories 24 hours a day – which made them much more productive without any improvements in the technology of production. Replacing putrid gas lamps also made the smell of factories better for the workmen who worked there. As the electrical grid became more reliable, electric motors gradually began to replace steam engines as the source of power in manufacturing. Using small electric motors as a source of power freed factories from having to be located near water sources to feed boilers and made it possible for them to be smaller too.

Between 1880 and 1900, factories tended to adopt electric lighting but kept using earlier sources of power for their operation. Electric power for factory operations came quickly between 1900 and 1930. Both these developments (along with the large supply of immigrant workers) contributed to the industrialization of cities. The electrification of industrial facilities of all kinds proceeded quickly during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Businesses got wired for electricity much faster than cities because they could make the most use of what started out as a relatively expensive service.

Because factories were concentrated in or near cities, it was a lot cheaper to wire them than it was to wire farms or even smaller cities away from electrical generating stations. Many of the new factories built during this later period appeared outside city limits, another new development. Electrification allowed managers to automate jobs once done by hand labor, thereby eliminating inefficiency, gaining greater control over the production process, and boosting overall productivity. New devices like time clocks and even new modes of production like the assembly line also depended upon electric power.

The advent of cheap and readily available electricity had a particularly important effect upon the physical layout of American cities during this period. Frank Sprague, an electrical engineer who had once worked for Thomas Edison, designed the first electric streetcar system for Richmond, Virginia, in 1888. Such systems supplanted horse‐drawn carriages, making it possible for people to travel further and faster than they would have otherwise. This gave rise to a burst of suburbanization, a spate of new towns on the outskirts of American cities where wealthy and middle‐class people could move to escape from the difficulties of modern urban life but still be close enough to enjoy many of its advantages.

The new suburbanites often traveled to and from work via new electric streetcars. The electrical equipment manufacturer Westinghouse was one of the major manufacturers of vehicles powered by an overhead wire. Electric streetcars had the advantage over horses of not leaving manure or of dying in the streets. Streetcars were more popular during weekends than during the week as working‐class people took advantage of low fares to explore new neighborhoods or to visit amusement parks, like Coney Island, generally built at the end of these lines.

In the same way that employers and city planners depended upon streetcars to move people, manufacturers became more dependent upon railroads, after 1880, to move their finished products. Railroad track mileage grew greatly after the Civil War, connecting cities and leading to the growth of new factories in places that were convenient to the necessary resources to make marketable goods. Eventually, mass distribution was a prerequisite to benefit from all that increased productivity. For all these reasons, separating the causes and effects of industrialization and urbanization is practically impossible.

Throughout the nineteenth century, factories usually had to be built near shipping ports or railroad stops because these were the easiest way to get factory products out to markets around the world. As more railroad tracks were built late in the nineteenth century, it became easier to locate factories outside of downtowns. Streetcars helped fill up the empty space downtown where factories would have gone. They made it easier to live further away from work and still commute to the heart of downtown, thereby making it possible for other kinds of businesses to locate there. One example would be the large urban department store, a phenomenon that predates 1880, but grew into its own after that date. Such stores like Wanamaker's in Philadelphia or Marshall Field's in Chicago bought the products of industrialization in bulk and sold them at a discounted price to workers who might have had trouble getting access to them any other way.

2.4.3 Structural Steel and Skyscrapers

While retail emporiums could be blocks long and only a few stories tall, other business rented space in thinner buildings built much higher. By the late 1880s, structures that had once been built with iron began to be built with a structural steel – a new, stronger kind of steel. The practice had begun in Chicago, championed by the architect Louis Sullivan, who designed the first skyscrapers there. A skyscraper, Sullivan wrote, “must be every inch a tall and soaring thing, rising in sheer exultation that from bottom to top it is a unit without a single dissenting line” (Alexiou 2013). That kind of design required a skeleton of structural steel upon which other substances like brick or granite could hang. Even then, such skyscrapers had to be tapered; otherwise, the weight from the top floors could make the whole structure collapse.

Creating structural steel for skyscrapers required entirely different production methods than had been required to make Bessemer steel (which had been used primarily for railroad rails). Quantity and speed were the main requirements of producing Bessemer steel. Structural steel required a more carefully made product. The demands of structural steel encouraged steelmakers like Andrew Carnegie to redesign entire factories, most notably replacing older Bessemer converters with the open‐hearth process. This new kind of steelmaking not only produced higher quality steel but also required fewer skilled workers. This encouraged Carnegie's company to lock out its union workforce at Homestead, Pennsylvania, in 1892, so that it could save money by employing cheap replacement workers.

The other innovation that made skyscrapers possible was the electric elevator. Elisha Graves Otis designed the first reliable elevator in 1857. With electric power, it became possible to rise 60 stories in a matter of seconds. Before the elevator, rental spaces in commercial buildings cost more on lower floors because people didn't want to have to walk up stairs to get to the top. With elevators, tenants willing paid a premium in order to get better views out of their windows. Without elevators, nobody would have bothered to erect a building taller than five stories (Misa 1999, 2016).

The construction of skyscrapers was itself a terrific example of the industrial age coordination of labor and materials distribution. Steel skeletons meant that the unornamented higher sections of a building could be worked on even before the inevitable elaborate ornamental fringes on the lower part of the building were finished. This saved both time and money. When New York got so crowded that there was no space to store raw materials, the appearance of those materials would be carefully choreographed, and they would be taken directly off of flatbed trucks and placed in their exact positions near the tops of new buildings. Around the turn of the twentieth century, a major skyscraper could be built in as little as one year. The faster a building could be built, the faster an owner could collect rents and begin to earn back construction expenses.

The great benefit of skyscrapers was the ability to compress economic activity into smaller areas. “The skyscraper,” explained one New Yorker in 1897, “gathers into a single edifice an extraordinary number of activities, which otherwise would be widely separated. Each building is an almost complete city, often comprising within its walls, banks and insurance offices, post office and telegraph office, business exchanges restaurants, clubrooms and shops.” These same miniature cities also included numerous retail outlets, where the products of industrialized manufacturing could be purchased (Rees 2013). Shorter distances between these locations accelerated the pace of economic activity, which promoted further economic growth. However, large projects (like the many skyscrapers associated with the building of New York's Grand Central Station) eliminated or at least obscured urban industrial areas.

Unburdened by the need to pay federal income tax, industrial titans from across the United States displayed their massive wealth by building lavish mansions along New York's Fifth Avenue during the 1890s. By the 1920s, the value of land in Manhattan grew so fast because of its possible use for skyscrapers that second‐generation industrial families sold their mansions, since they no longer wanted to pay huge property taxes on them. Blocks of what was known as “Vanderbilt Alley,” named after the children of the steamship and railroad pioneer who had built mansions in the same area, were replaced by skyscrapers and high‐end retail emporiums.

The same basic principles of skyscraper production – build it quick and large, and pack it with people – motivated the way that builders produced other kinds of urban domiciles. “Today, three‐fourths of [New York City's] people live in the tenements,” wrote the reformer Jacob Riis in his 1890 classic, How the Other Half Lives, “and the nineteenth‐century drift of the population to the cities is sending ever‐increasing multitudes to crowd them” (Riis 1914). The best‐known tenement house design of this period was the dumbbell tenement of about five or six stories tall. They came about as the result of a design contest but were generally so crowded that they did more harm than good to the people who lived in them. Four families might live on a single floor with only two bathrooms between them. Designed to let light and air into central courtyards (which explains why they were shaped like a dumbbell from above), stacked up back‐to‐back, one against the other they did neither. Widely copied, New York City actually outlawed this design for new buildings in 1901 – but the old structures remained.

Apartment houses made it easier to pack people into small urban areas and therefore live closer to where they worked. Wealthy people could buy space and separation from one's neighbors, while those middle‐class people who could not afford to live in suburbs lost the space they had before urbanization accelerated. To counter these unequal tendencies, New Yorkers developed the idea of the cooperative, where many people bought a single building and managed it themselves. Lavish apartments became alternatives for mansions once Manhattan real estate became too expensive for all except those with huge fortunes.

2.4.4 The Assembly Line

The farther away that people lived from central business districts, the more they needed efficient transportation. Streetcars helped, to an extent, but passenger lines that centered on downtown neighborhoods left large areas that could be occupied with housing for a growing working population, provided that these residents had their own way to get around. “I will build a car for the great multitude,” declared Henry Ford in 1908. “It will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one” (Watts 2005). That car was the Model T, and it revolutionized both auto‐making and the American landscape. It also revolutionized the entire concept of American production. Ford did not worry about whether his cars would have a market. He would make a market for his cars by producing them so cheaply that nearly every American could afford one.

Ford could achieve both quality and a low price at scale because of the assembly line. This particular conceptual breakthrough owed much to the “disassembly lines” that had been pioneered in the meatpacking industry during the previous century. In the same way that a single carcass was picked apart by men with specialized jobs as it moved along a line, mounted upon a hook, Ford arranged his new factory at Highland Park so that men with highly specialized assignments could build an automobile much faster than before. The assembly line moved work to the men rather than forcing men to move to the work, thereby saving valuable time and energy. It also extended the concept of the division of labor to its logical extreme so that workers would perform only one function in a much larger assembly process all day, every day. The applicability of these principles to the manufacturing of just about everything is what made Ford such an important figure in the history of industrialization. Mass production became possible for all kinds of things that had once seemed far removed from the automobile.

Ford built Model T's at three different facilities over the entire history of that vehicle. He improved his production methods over time (which included introducing and improving upon the assembly line) so that he could produce them more cheaply and efficiently. Efficiency depended on speed, and speed depended upon the exact place in the factory where those machines were placed. Because Ford made only one car, he could employ single‐purpose machine tools of extraordinarily high quality. The company also used lots of other automated manufacturing equipment, like gravity slides and conveyors, to get parts of the car from one place to another in its increasingly large, increasingly mechanized factories.

Because the assembly line moved the work to the men rather than the men to the work, the company could control the speed of the entire operation. Like earlier manufacturers, Ford depended upon standardized, identical parts to produce more cars for less, but the assembly line also made it possible to conserve labor – not by mechanizing jobs that had once been done by hand, but by mechanizing work processes and paying employees just to feed and tend to those machines. This was not fun work to do. “The chain system you have is a slave driver!” wrote an anonymous housewife based on her husband's experience working on the assembly line. “My God! Mr. Ford. My husband has come home and thrown himself down and won't eat his supper – so done out! Can't it be remedied”? Ford instituted an unprecedented wage of $5/day to keep workers on his assembly line, but this reward did not make the work any easier (Hounshell 1984).

Before Ford came along, cars were boutique goods that only rich people could afford to operate. After Ford introduced the assembly line (actually a series of assembly lines for every part of the car), labor productivity improved to such a degree that mass production became possible. Perhaps more important than mass production was mass consumption, since continual productivity improvements meant that Ford could lower the price of the Model T every year, while simultaneously making small but significant changes that steadily improved the quality of the car. Mass production eliminated choice, since Ford produced no other car, but Ford built variations of the Model T, like the runabout with the same chassis, and owners retro‐fitted their Model T's for everything from camping to farming.

The increased number of automobiles on city streets further congested already congested downtown areas. Streetcars got blocked. Pedestrians died in gruesome traffic accidents. One of the basic requirements of having so many new cars on the roads was to improve the quality and quantity of roads. Local city planners tended to attack such problems on a case‐by‐case basis, laying pavement on well‐traveled roads and widening them when appropriate. New traffic rules, such as the first one‐way streets, appeared in an effort to alleviate these kinds of problems. Traffic control towers and traffic lights – the mechanical solution to a problem inspired by industrialization – also appeared for the first time during this era.

Cities grew when industries grew during this era. Since people had to live near where they worked (and few people lived in skyscrapers), many builders built out into undeveloped areas. If a city had annexed much of the land around it previous to these economic expansions (like Detroit), those areas became parts of a larger city. If they hadn't, much of this growth occurred in new suburbs (like Philadelphia). Chicago was so confident of further growth during this period that it built streetcar lines into vacant fields. To meet rising demand for housing, homebuilders applied industrial principles to building – using standardized parts that were themselves the result of mass production techniques. By the 1920s, buying precut mail order houses became big business.

2.4.5 The Origins of Mass Production

After 1880, mechanization made factories even more productive thanks to technological improvements. This can be traced back to Thomas Edison's labs in New Jersey, where he practiced systematic invention to exploit the great commercial opportunities that modern life created. The electrical and chemical industries formed the vanguard for the blending of science and the useful arts during this era. By the 1920s, engineers had been formally integrated into the management hierarchies of countless American industries.

Reorganization of production merged with technological improvement had made mass production possible long before Ford developed the assembly line. James Bonsack's cigarette rolling machine, for example, patented in 1881, could produce 70 000 cigarettes in a single 10‐hour day. By the end of that decade, it could produce 120 000 cigarettes in a day (Chandler 1977). When James “Buck” Duke bought exclusive rights to this machine in 1885, it became the basis of his American Tobacco Company, which quickly controlled most of the industry.

By the 1920s, mass production had arrived in industries that produced goods that were much more expensive than cigarettes. Ford's principles of mass production spread quickly throughout the manufacturing sector, to products of all kinds, because Henry Ford was so open about the way he designed his factories. Among the other manufacturers that used Ford's principles during the 1920s were the makers of home appliances, like refrigerators and radios. General Electric, for example, built an $18 million assembly line for its Monitor Top refrigerator and sold 1 million refrigerators just 4 years after its introduction in 1927 (Cowan 1985).

Even craft‐dominated industries like furniture making came to depend upon mass production to make their products more available to the masses. People who moved from farms to cities desperately needed furniture for their new urban residences, but in industrial towns like Grand Rapids, Michigan, they could not afford pieces made by craftsman. New mass‐produced models made with minimal carving and overlays, based on stylish patterns, found a market all over the country. It helped that companies like Bassett, founded in Virginia in 1902, discouraged their workers from forming unions, just like Ford did. An unorganized workforce made it easier for industrialists to impose changes in the production process without resistance from employees.

The changeover from the Model T to the Model A, in 1927, demonstrated the limits of industrialized mass production. The Model A was incredibly expensive, and Ford had to shut his main plant for months to retool the production line for his new models. While the new car sold well initially, sales dropped precipitously as the Depression deepened. “Mass production is not simply large‐scale production,” wrote the department store magnate Edward Filene, in 1932. “It is large‐scale production based upon a clear understanding that increased production demands increased buying” (Hounshell 1984). Mass buying became difficult when people had little money with which to buy the products of industrialization. Urban building slowed precipitously during the Depression too. Since cities were the focal points of industrialization, urban citizens suffered disproportionately when production waned. Of course, when the United States sank into the economic downturn of the Great Depression, both urban and industrial growth decreased sharply.

2.6.1 Bhopal: The World's Worst Industrial Tragedy

Thirty three years ago, on the night of 2 December 1984, an accident at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released at least 30 T of a highly toxic gas called methyl isocyanate (MIC), as well as a number of other poisonous gases. The pesticide plant was surrounded by shanty towns, leading to more than 600 000 people being exposed to the deadly gas cloud that night. The gases stayed low to the ground, causing victims' throats and eyes to burn, inducing nausea, and many deaths. Estimates of the death toll vary from as few as 3 800 to as many as 16 000, but government figures now refer to an estimate of 15 000 killed over the years. Toxic material remains, and 30 years later, many of those who were exposed to the gas have given birth to physically and mentally disabled children. For decades, survivors have been fighting to have the site cleaned up, but they say the efforts were slowed when Michigan‐based Dow Chemical took over Union Carbide in 2001. Human rights groups say that thousands of tons of hazardous waste remain buried underground, and the government has conceded the area is contaminated. There has, however, been no long‐term epidemiological research which conclusively proves that birth defects are directly related to the drinking of the contaminated water.

2.6.1.7 Cuyahoga River Fire

The Cuyahoga River is in the United States, located in Northeast Ohio, that feeds into Lake Erie. The river is famous for having been so polluted that it “caught fire” in 1969 (Figure 2.3). It was the disaster that ignited an environmental revolution. On that day, 22 June 1969, the Cuyahoga River burst into flames in Cleveland when sparks from a passing train set fire to oil‐soaked debris floating on the water's surface. By 1969, the Cuyahoga River was not a unique experience in the United States. A river flowing into Baltimore, Maryland, caught fire on 8 June 1906 (CPD 1926). In Philadelphia, the Schuykill burned in the 1950s (Kernan 1958). The Buffalo River in upper New York state burned in the 1960s (UPI 1984). The Rouge River in Dearborn, Michigan, repeatedly burned (US 1974).

So, why is the Cuyahoga River fire a seminal event in the history of water pollution control in the United States? Because it was a catalyst for change in federal government's role in water pollution control. Although the federal government had powerful tools to control water pollution, for example, the River and Harbors Act of 1899 and the Water Quality Act of 1965. States and cities were left to fend for themselves. The flaming Cuyahoga became a figurehead for America's mounting environmental issues and sparked wide‐ranging reforms, including the passage of the Clean Water Act (CWA) (1972) and the creation of federal and state environmental protection agencies.

But the episode itself did not quite live up to its billing. It was not the first fire, or even the worst, on the Cuyahoga, which had lit up at least a dozen other times before. And industrial dumping was already improving by the time of the 1969 blaze. The reality is that the 1969 Cuyahoga fire was not a symbol of how bad conditions on the nation's rivers could become, but how bad they had once been. The 1969 fire was not the first time an industrial river in the United States had caught on fire, but the last. The event helped to spur the environmental movement in the United States (Adler 2003).

2.6.1.8 The Great Smog of London

Great Smog of 1952 was a severe air‐pollution event that affected the British capital of London in early December 1952. A period of cold weather, combined with an anticyclone and windless conditions, collected airborne pollutants – mostly arising from the use of coal – to form a thick layer of smog over the city. It lasted from Friday, 5 December to Tuesday, 9 December 1952 and then dispersed quickly when the weather changed.

It caused major disruption by reducing visibility and even penetrating indoor areas, far more severe than previous smog events experienced in the past, called “pea‐soupers.” Government medical reports in the following weeks, however, estimated that up until 8 December, 4 000 people had died as a direct result of the smog and 100 000 more were made ill by the smog's effects on the human respiratory tract. More recent research suggests that the total number of fatalities was considerably greater, about 12 000 (Figures 2.4 and 2.5) (The Great Smog of 1952 2014).

The Prime Minister at that time, Winston Churchill, was adamant that it would pass, simply dismissing it as a “weather event.” London had suffered since the thirteenth century from poor air quality (Brimblecombe 1976), which worsened in the 1600s (The Observer 2002), but the Great Smog is known to be the worst air‐pollution event in the history of the United Kingdom, and the most significant in terms of its effect on environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health (Bell et al. 2004; The Observer 2002). It led to several changes in practices and regulations, including the Clean Air Act 1956.

2.7.1 History of Environmental Law

Early examples of legal enactments designed to consciously preserve the environment, for its own sake or human enjoyment, are found throughout history. In the common law, the primary protection was found in the law of nuisance, but this only allowed for private actions for damages or injunctions if there was harm to land. Thus, smells emanating from pig sties, (Aldred's Case 1610), strict liability against dumping rubbish (R v. Stephens 1866), or damage from exploding dams (Rylands v. Fletcher, 1868). Private enforcement, however, was limited and found to be woefully inadequate to deal with major environmental threats, particularly threats to common resources. During the “Great Stink of 1858, the dumping of sewerage into the River Thames began to smell so ghastly in the summer heat that Parliament had to be evacuated. Ironically, the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers Act 1848 had allowed the Metropolitan Commission for Sewers to close cesspits around the city in an attempt to “clean up,” but this simply led people to pollute the river. In 19 days, Parliament passed a further Act to build the London sewerage system. London also suffered from terrible air pollution, and this culminated in the “Great Smog” of 1952, which in turn triggered its own legislative response: the Clean Air Act 1956. The basic regulatory structure was to set limits on emissions for households and business (particularly burning coal) while an inspectorate would enforce compliance.

Notwithstanding early analogs, the concept of “environmental law” as a separate and distinct body of law is a twentieth‐century development (Lazarus 2006). The recognition that the natural environment was fragile and in need of special legal protections, the translation of that recognition into legal structures, the development of those structures into a larger body of “environmental law,” and the strong influence of environmental law on natural resource laws did not occur until about the 1960s. At that time, numerous influences – including a growing awareness of the unity and fragility of the biosphere; increased public concern over the impact of industrial activity on natural resources and human health; the increasing strength of the regulatory state; and more broadly the advent and success of environmentalism as a political movement –coalesced to produce a huge new body of law in a relatively short period of time. While the modern history of environmental law is one of continuing controversy, by the end of the twentieth century environmental law had been established as a component of the legal landscape in all developed nations of the world, many developing ones, and the larger project of international law.

2.8.1 Air Quality Law

Industrial air pollution, now regulated by air quality law:

Air quality laws govern the emission of air pollutants into the atmosphere. A specialized subset of air quality laws regulate the quality of air inside buildings. Air quality laws are often designed specifically to protect human health by limiting or eliminating airborne pollutant concentrations. Other initiatives are designed to address broader ecological problems, such as limitations on chemicals that affect the ozone layer, and emissions trading programs to address acid rain or climate change. Regulatory efforts include identifying and categorizing air pollutants, setting limits on acceptable emissions levels, and dictating necessary or appropriate mitigation technologies.

2.8.2 Water Quality Law

A typical stormwater outfall, subject to water quality law:

Water quality laws govern the release of pollutants into water resources, including surface water, ground water, and stored drinking water. Some water quality laws, such as drinking water regulations, may be designed solely with reference to human health. Many others, including restrictions on the alteration of the chemical, physical, radiological, and biological characteristics of water resources, may also reflect efforts to protect aquatic ecosystems more broadly. Regulatory efforts may include identifying and categorizing water pollutants, dictating acceptable pollutant concentrations in water resources, and limiting pollutant discharges from effluent sources. Regulatory areas include sewage treatment and disposal, industrial and agricultural waste water management, and control of surface runoff from construction sites and urban environments.

2.8.3 Waste Management Law

A municipal landfill, operated pursuant to waste management law:

Waste management laws govern the transport, treatment, storage, and disposal of all manner of waste, including municipal solid waste, hazardous waste, and nuclear waste, among many other types. Waste laws are generally designed to minimize or eliminate the uncontrolled dispersal of waste materials into the environment in a manner that may cause ecological or biological harm and include laws designed to reduce the generation of waste and promote or mandate waste recycling. Regulatory efforts include identifying and categorizing waste types and mandating transport, treatment, storage, and disposal practices.

2.8.4 Contaminant Cleanup Law

Oil spill emergency response, governed by environmental cleanup law:

Environmental cleanup laws govern the removal of pollution or contaminants from environmental media, such as soil, sediment, surface water, or ground water. Unlike pollution control laws, cleanup laws are designed to respond after‐the‐fact to environmental contamination, and consequently must often define not only the necessary response actions but also the parties who may be responsible for undertaking (or paying for) such actions. Regulatory requirements may include rules for emergency response, liability allocation, site assessment, remedial investigation, feasibility studies, remedial action, post‐remedial monitoring, and site reuse.

2.8.5 Chemical Safety Laws

Chemical safety laws govern the use of chemicals in human activities, particularly man‐made chemicals in modern industrial applications. As contrasted with media‐oriented environmental laws (e.g. air or water quality laws), chemical control laws seek to manage the (potential) pollutants themselves. Regulatory efforts include banning specific chemical constituents in consumer products (e.g. Bisphenol A in plastic bottles) and regulating pesticides.

2.8.6 Water Resources Law

An irrigation ditch, operated in accordance with water resources law:

Water resources laws govern the ownership and use of water resources, including surface water and ground water. Regulatory areas may include water conservation, use restrictions, and ownership regimes.

2.8.7 Mineral Resources Law

Mineral resource laws cover several basic topics, including the ownership of the mineral resource and who can work them. Mining is also affected by various regulations regarding the health and safety of miners, as well as the environmental impact of mining.

2.8.8 Forest Resources Law

A timber operation, regulated by forestry law:

Forestry laws govern activities in designated forest lands, most commonly with respect to forest management and timber harvesting. Ancillary laws may regulate forest land acquisition and prescribed burn practices. Forest management laws generally adopt management policies, such as multiple use and sustained yield, by which public forest resources are to be managed. Governmental agencies are generally responsible for planning and implementing forestry laws on public forest lands and may be involved in forest inventory, planning, and conservation, and oversight of timber sales. Broader initiatives may seek to slow or reverse deforestation.

2.8.9 Wildlife and Plants Protection Laws

Wildlife laws govern the potential impact of human activity on wild animals, whether directly on individuals or populations, or indirectly via habitat degradation. Similar laws may operate to protect plant species. Such laws may be enacted entirely to protect biodiversity or as a means for protecting species deemed important for other reasons. Regulatory efforts may include the creation of special conservation statuses, prohibitions on killing, harming, or disturbing protected species, efforts to induce and support species recovery, establishment of wildlife refuges to support conservation, and prohibitions on trafficking in species or animal parts to combat poaching.

2.8.10 Fish and Game Laws

Fish and game laws regulate the right to pursue and take or kill certain kinds of fish and wild animal (game). Such laws may restrict the days to harvest fish or game, the number of animals caught per person, the species harvested, or the weapons or fishing gear used. Such laws may seek to balance dueling needs for preservation and harvest and to manage both environment and populations of fish and game. Game laws can provide a legal structure to collect license fees and other money which is used to fund conservation efforts as well as to obtain harvest information used in wildlife management practice.

2.8.11 Principles

Environmental law has developed in response to emerging awareness of and concern over issues impacting the entire world. While laws have developed piecemeal and for a variety of reasons, some effort has gone into identifying key concepts and guiding principles common to environmental law as a whole (UNEP 1992). The principles discussed below are not an exhaustive list and are not universally recognized or accepted. Nonetheless, they represent important principles for the understanding of environmental law around the world.

2.9.1 Environmental Impact Assessment

Environmental impact assessment (EA) is the assessment of the environmental consequences both positive and negative of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the term “environmental impact assessment” is usually used when applied to actual projects by individuals or companies and the term “strategic environmental assessment” (SEA) applies to policies, plans, and programs most often proposed by organization of state (Eccleston 2017). Environmental assessments may be governed by rules of administrative procedure regarding public participation and documentation of decision making and may be subject to judicial review.

2.9.2 Sustainable Development

Defined by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP 1986, 1992, 2001, 2006, 2013) as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” sustainable development may be considered together with the concepts of “integration” (development cannot be considered in isolation from sustainability) and “interdependence” (social and economic development, and environmental protection, are interdependent). Laws mandating EPA and requiring or encouraging development to minimize environmental impacts may be assessed against this principle.

The modern concept of sustainable development was a topic of discussion at the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm Conference) and the driving force behind the 1983 World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED, or Bruntland Commission). In 1992, the first UN Earth Summit resulted in the Rio Declaration, Principle 3 of which reads: “The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations.” Sustainable development has been a core concept of international environmental discussion ever since, including at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Earth Summit 2002), and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Earth Summit 2012).

2.9.3 Equity

Further information: Intergenerational equity

Defined by UNEP to include intergenerational equity – “the right of future generations to enjoy a fair level of the common patrimony” – and intragenerational equity – “the right of all people within the current generation to fair access to the current generation's entitlement to the Earth's natural resources” – environmental equity considers the present generation under an obligation to account for long‐term impacts of activities, and to act to sustain the global environment and resource base for future generations. Pollution control and resource management laws may be assessed against this principle.

2.9.4 Transboundary Responsibility

Defined in the international law context as an obligation to protect one's own environment, and to prevent damage to neighboring environments, UNEP considers transboundary responsibility at the international level as a potential limitation on the rights of the sovereign state. Laws that act to limit externalities imposed upon human health and the environment may be assessed against this principle.

2.9.5 Public Participation and Transparency

Identified as essential conditions for “accountable governments ⋯ industrial concerns,” and organizations generally, public participation and transparency are presented by UNEP as requiring “effective protection of the human right to hold and express opinions and to seek, receive and impart ideas … a right of access to appropriate, comprehensible and timely information held by governments and industrial concerns on economic and social policies regarding the sustainable use of natural resources and the protection of the environment, without imposing undue financial burdens upon the applicants and with adequate protection of privacy and business confidentiality,” and “effective judicial and administrative proceedings.” These principles are present in EPA, laws requiring publication and access to relevant environmental data, and administrative procedure.

2.9.6 Precautionary principle

One of the most commonly encountered and controversial principles of environmental law, the Rio Declaration formulated the precautionary principle as follows:

The principle may play a role in any debate over the need for environmental regulation.

2.9.7 Prevention

The concept of prevention … can perhaps better be considered an overarching aim that gives rise to a multitude of legal mechanisms, including prior assessment of environmental harm, licensing or authorization that set out the conditions for operation and the consequences for violation of the conditions, as well as the adoption of strategies and policies. Emission limits and other product or process standards, the use of best available techniques and similar techniques can all be seen as applications of the concept of prevention.

2.11.1 Environmental Impact Statement and NEPA Process

An environmental impact statement (EIS), under US environmental law, is a document required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for certain actions “significantly affecting the quality of the human environment” (NEPA 1969). An EIS is a tool for decision making. It describes the positive and negative environmental effects of a proposed action, and it usually also lists one or more alternative actions that may be chosen instead of the action described in the EIS. Several US state governments require that a document similar to an EIS be submitted to the state for certain actions.

2.11.2 Purpose of NEPA

The purpose of the NEPA is to promote informed decision making by federal agencies by making “detailed information concerning significant environmental impacts” available to both agency leaders and the public (Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens Council 1989). The NEPA was the first piece of legislation that created a comprehensive method to assess potential and existing environmental risks at once. It also encourages communication and cooperation between all the actors involved in environmental decisions, including government officials, private businesses, and citizens (Felleman 2013).

In particular, an EIS acts as an enforcement mechanism to ensure that the federal government adheres to the goals and policies outlined in the NEPA. An EIS should be created in a timely manner as soon as the agency is planning development or is presented with a proposal for development. The statement should use an interdisciplinary approach so that it accurately assesses both the physical and social impacts of the proposed development (EIS 2010). In many instances an action may be deemed subject to NEPA's EIS requirement even though the action is not specifically sponsored by a federal agency. These factors may include actions that receive federal funding, federal licensing, or authorization, or that are subject to federal control (Eccleston 2008).

An EIS typically has four sections (Eccleston 2014):

1. An introduction including a statement of the purpose and need of the proposed action.
2. A description of the affected environment.
3. A range of alternatives to the proposed action. Alternatives are considered the “heart” of the EIS.

   An analysis of the environmental impacts of each of the possible alternatives. This section covers topics such as the following:

   • Impacts to threatened or endangered species
   • Air and water quality impacts
   • Impacts to historic and cultural sites, particularly sites of significant importance to indigenous peoples.
   • Social and economic impacts to local communities, often including consideration of attributes such as impacts to available housing stock, economic impacts to businesses, property values, aesthetics, and noise within the affected area.
   • Cost analysis for each alternative, including costs to mitigate expected impacts, to determine if the proposed action is a prudent use of taxpayer dollars.

2.12.1 Africa

According to the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement, the major environmental issues in Africa are “drought and flooding, air pollution, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, freshwater availability, degradation of soil and vegetation, and widespread poverty.” The USEPA is focused on the “growing urban and industrial pollution, water quality, electronic waste, and indoor air from cook stoves.” They hope to provide enough aid on concerns regarding pollution before their impacts contaminate the African environment as well as the global environment. By doing so, they intend to “protect human health, particularly vulnerable populations such as children and the poor” (EPA 2012). In order to accomplish these goals in Africa, EPA programs are focused on strengthening the ability to enforce environmental laws as well as public compliance to them. Other programs work on developing stronger environmental laws, regulations, and standards.

2.12.2 Asia

The Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network (AECEN) is an agreement between 16 Asian countries dedicated to improving cooperation with environmental laws in Asia. These countries include Cambodia, China, Indonesia, India, Maldives, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, and Lao PDR (AECEN 2018).

2.12.3 European Union

The European Union issues secondary legislation on environmental issues that are valid throughout the EU (so‐called regulations) and many directives that must be implemented into national legislation from the 28 member states (national states). Examples are the Regulation (EC) No. 338/97 on the implementation of CITES; or the Natura 2000 network the centerpiece for nature and biodiversity policy, encompassing the bird directive (79/409/EEC/ changed to 2009/147/EC) and the habitats directive (92/43/EEC), which are made up of multiple SACs (Special Areas of Conservation, linked to the habitats directive) and SPAs (Special Protected Areas, linked to the bird directive) throughout Europe.

EU legislation is ruled in Article 249 Treaty for the Functioning of the European Union. Topics for common EU legislation are as follows:

• Climate change
• Air pollution
• Water protection and management
• Waste management
• Soil protection
• Protection of nature, species, and biodiversity
• Noise pollution
• Cooperation for the environment with third countries (other than EU member states)
• Civil protection

2.12.4 Middle East

The USEPA is working with countries in the Middle East to improve “environmental governance, water pollution and water security, clean fuels and vehicles, public participation, and pollution prevention.”

2.12.5 Oceania

The main concerns on environmental issues in the Oceanic Region are “illegal releases of air and water pollutants, illegal logging/timber trade, illegal shipment of hazardous wastes, including e‐waste and ships slated for destruction, and insufficient institutional structure/lack of enforcement capacity.” The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Program (SPREP) is an international organization between Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, France, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Island, Tonga, Tuvalu, United States, and Vanuatu. The SPREP was established in order to provide assistance in improving and protecting the environment as well as to assure sustainable development for future generations (SPREP n.d.; Taylor et al. 2013).

2.12.6 Australia

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is the centerpiece of environmental legislation in the Australian Government. It sets up the “legal framework to protect and manage nationally and internationally important flora, fauna, ecological communities and heritage places” (EPBC 1999). It also focuses on protecting world heritage properties, national heritage properties, wetlands of international importance, nationally threatened species and ecological communities, migratory species, Commonwealth marine areas, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, and the environment surrounding nuclear activities (EPBC 1999). Commonwealth v. Tasmania (1983), also known as the “Tasmanian Dam Case,” is the most influential case for Australian environmental law (Commonwealth v Tasmania 1983).

2.12.7 Brazil

The Brazilian government created the Ministry of Environment in 1992 in order to develop better strategies of protecting the environment, use natural resources sustainably, and enforce public environmental policies. The Ministry of Environment has authority over policies involving environment, water resources, preservation, and environmental programs involving the Amazon.

2.12.8 Canada

The Department of the Environment Act establishes the Department of the Environment in the Canadian government as well as the position Minister of the Environment. Their duties include “the preservation and enhancement of the quality of the natural environment, including water, air and soil quality; renewable resources, including migratory birds and other nondomestic flora and fauna; water; meteorology” (Department of the Environment Act 1985/2009). The Environmental Protection Act is the main piece of Canadian environmental legislation that was put into place on 31 March 2000. The Act focuses on “respecting pollution prevention and the protection of the environment and human health in order to contribute to sustainable development.” Other principle federal statutes include the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Species at Risk Act. When provincial and federal legislation are in conflict, federal legislation takes precedence, that being said individual provinces can have their own legislation such as Ontario's Environmental Bill of Rights and Clean Water Act (1985).

2.12.9 China

According to the USEPA, “China has been working with great determination in recent years to develop, implement, and enforce a solid environmental law framework. Chinese officials face critical challenges in effectively implementing the laws, clarifying the roles of their national and provincial governments, and strengthening the operation of their legal system” (EPA Collaboration with China 2017). Explosive economic and industrial growth in China has led to significant environmental degradation, and China is currently in the process of developing more stringent legal controls (McElwee 2011). The harmonization of Chinese society and the natural environment is billed as a rising policy priority (NRDC 2014; Pettit 2014; Stern 2013; Wang 2013).

2.12.10 Ecuador

With the enactment of the 2008 Constitution, Ecuador became the first country in the world to codify the Rights of Nature. The Constitution, specifically Articles 10 and 71–74, recognizes the inalienable rights of ecosystems to exist and flourish, gives people the authority to petition on the behalf of ecosystems, and requires the government to remedy violations of these rights. The rights approach is a break away from traditional environmental regulatory systems, which regard nature as property and legalize and manage degradation of the environment rather than prevent it (CELDF 2017).

The Rights of Nature articles in Ecuador's constitution are part of a reaction to a combination of political, economic, and social phenomena. Ecuador's abusive past with the oil industry, most famously the class‐action litigation against Chevron, and the failure of an extraction‐based economy and neoliberal reforms to bring economic prosperity to the region has resulted in the election of a New Leftist regime, led by President Rafael Correa, and sparked a demand for new approaches to development. In conjunction with this need, the principle of “Buen Vivir,” or good living – focused on social, environmental, and spiritual wealth versus material wealth – gained popularity among citizens and was incorporated into the new constitution (Gudynas 2011).

The influence of indigenous groups, from whom the concept of “Buen Vivir” originates, in the forming of the constitutional ideals also facilitated the incorporation of the Rights of Nature as a basic tenet of their culture and conceptualization of “Buen Vivir” (Becker 2011).

2.12.11 Egypt

The Environmental Protection Law outlines the responsibilities of the Egyptian government to “preparation of draft legislation and decrees pertinent to environmental management, collection of data both nationally and internationally on the state of the environment, preparation of periodical reports and studies on the state of the environment, formulation of the national plan and its projects, preparation of environmental profiles for new and urban areas, and setting of standards to be used in planning for their development, and preparation of an annual report on the state of the environment to be prepared to the President” (Ministry of Environment Egyptian Environmental Affairs 2009).

2.12.12 Germany

Since 15 November 1994, environmental protection has been enshrined as an objective of the state in Article 20a of the German Basic Law. Constitutional status has thus been afforded to environmental protection and its objectives. All state bodies – in particular the legislature – are required to be “mindful also of [their] responsibility toward future generations” and to protect the environment (Seider 2010):

• Law on Conservation and Environmental Care (Gesetz über Naturschutz und Landschaftspflege – Bundesnaturschutzgesetz – BNatSchG)
• Law on Protection for Environmental Harms due to Air Pollution, Noise, etc. (Gesetz zum Schutz vor schädlichen Umwelteinwirkungen durch Luftverunreinigungen, Geräusche, Erschütterungen und ähnliche Vorgänge – Bundes‐Immissionsschutzgesetz – BImSchG)
• Regulation on Drinking Water Quality (Trinkwasserverordnung – TrinkwV)
• Regulation on Soil Protection (Bundesbodenschutzgesetz – BBSchG)
• Regulation on Waste Management (Kreislaufwirtschaftsgesetz – KrwG)
• Regulation on Water Usage (Wasserhaushaltsgesetz – WHG)

2.12.13 India

In India, environmental law is governed by the Environment Protection Act (EPA, India), 1986 (The Environmental Act 1986; Upadhyay 2012). This act is enforced by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the numerous State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs). Apart from this, there are also individual legislations specifically enacted for the protection of water, air, wildlife, etc. Such legislations include the following:

• The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974
• The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Cess Act, 1977
• The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980
• The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981
• Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) (Union Territories) Rules, 1983
• The Biological Diversity Act, 2002 and the Wild Life Protection Act, 1972
• Batteries (Management and Handling) Rules, 2001
• Recycled Plastics, Plastics Manufacture and Usage Rules, 1999
• The National Green Tribunal established under the National Green Tribunal Act of 2010 has jurisdiction over all environmental cases dealing with a substantial environmental question and acts covered under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.
• Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Cess Rules, 1978
• Ganga Action Plan, 1986
• The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980
• The Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991 and the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. The acts covered under Indian Wild Life Protection Act 1972 do not fall within the jurisdiction of the National Green Tribunal. Appeals can be filed in the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India (The Indian Wildlife Protection Act 1972)
• Basel Convention on Control of Transboundary Movements on Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, 1989 and Its Protocols
• Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Amendment Rules, 2003 (Malik and Malik 2015)

2.13.1 Introduction

Over the years, together with a spreading of environmental consciousness, there has been a change in the traditionally held perception that there is a trade‐off between environmental quality and economic growth as people have come to believe that the two are necessarily complementary. The current focus on environment is not new environmental considerations have been an integral part of the Indian culture. The need for conservation and sustainable use of natural resources has been expressed in Indian scriptures, more than 3000 years old and is reflected in the constitutional, legislative, and policy framework as also in the international commitments of the country.

Even before India's independence in 1947, several environmental legislations existed but the real impetus for bringing about a well‐developed framework came only after the UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm, 1972). Under the influence of this declaration, the National Council for Environmental Policy and Planning within the Department of Science and Technology was set up in 1972. This Council later evolved into a full‐fledged Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF) in 1985 which today is the apex administrative body in India for regulating and ensuring environmental protection. After the Stockholm Conference, in 1976, constitutional sanction was given to environmental concerns through the 42nd Amendment, which incorporated them into the Directive Principles of State Policy and Fundamental Rights and Duties.

Since the 1970s an extensive network of environmental legislation has grown in the country. The MOEF and the pollution control boards (i.e. CPCB and SPCBs) together form the regulatory and administrative core of the sector.

A policy framework has also been developed to complement the legislative provisions. The Policy Statement for Abatement of Pollution and the National Conservation Strategy and Policy Statement on Environment and Development were brought out by the MOEF in 1992, to develop and promote initiatives for the protection and improvement of the environment. The Environmental Action Program (EAP) was formulated in 1993 with the objective of improving environmental services and integrating environmental considerations in to development programs.

Other measures have also been taken by the government to protect and preserve the environment. Several sector‐specific policies have evolved, which are discussed at length in the concerned sections. This attempts to highlight only legislative initiatives toward the protection of the environment.

2.13.2 Legislation for Environmental Protection in India

2.13.3 General

2.13.4 Hazardous Wastes

There are several legislations that directly or indirectly deal with hazardous waste. The relevant legislations are the Factories Act, 1948, the Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991, the National Environment Tribunal Act, 1995, and some notifications under the Environmental Protection Act of 1986. A brief description of each of these is given in the following.

Under the USEPA 1986, the MOEF has issued several notifications to tackle the problem of hazardous waste management. These include the following:

• Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989, which brought out a guide for manufacture, storage, and import of hazardous chemicals and for management of hazardous wastes.
• Biomedical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998, were formulated along parallel lines, for proper disposal, segregation, transport, etc. of infectious wastes.
• Municipal Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000, whose aim was to enable municipalities to dispose municipal solid waste in a scientific manner.
• Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Amendment Rules, 2000, a recent notification issued with the view to providing guidelines for the import and export of hazardous waste in the country.

2.13.5 International Agreements on Environmental Issues

India is signatory to a number of multilateral environment agreements (MEA) and conventions. An overview of some of the major MEAs and India's obligations under these is presented below. This issue is discussed in the Section 2.9.4 in Chapter 2.

2.13.6 An Assessment of the Legal and Regulatory Framework for Environmental Protection in India

The extent of the environmental legislation network is evident from the above discussion, but the enforcement of the laws has been a matter of concern. One commonly cited reason is the prevailing command and control nature of the environmental regime. Coupled with this is the prevalence of all or nothing approach of the law; they do not consider the extent of violation. Fines are levied on a flat basis and in addition there are no incentives to lower the discharges below prescribed levels.

Some initiatives have addressed these issues in the recent past. The Government of India came out with a Policy Statement for Abatement of Pollution in 1992, before the Rio conference, which declared that market‐based approaches would be considered in controlling pollution. It stated that economic instruments will be investigated to encourage the shift from curative to preventive measures, internalize the costs of pollution and conserve resources, particularly water. In 1995, MOEF constituted a task force to evaluate market‐based instruments, which strongly advocated their use for the abatement of industrial pollution. Various economic incentives have been used to supplement the command‐and‐control policies. Depreciation allowances, exemptions from excise or customs duty payment, and arrangement of soft loans for the adoption of clean technologies are instances of such incentives. Another aspect that is evident is the shift in the focus from end‐of‐pipe treatment of pollution to treatment at source. The role of remote sensing and geographical information systems in natural resource management and environmental protection has also gained importance over time. India has made commendable advances in the use of remote sensing for natural resource management and in integrating environmental and development at the policy planning and management levels.

An important recent development is the rise of judicial activism in the enforcement of environmental legislation. This is reflected in the growth of environment‐related public litigation cases that have led the courts to take major steps such as ordering the shutdown of polluting factories.

Agenda 21 highlights the need for integration of environmental concerns at all stages of policy, planning, and decision‐making processes, including the use of an effective legal and regulatory framework, economic instruments, and other incentives. These very principles were fundamental to guiding environmental protection in the country well before Rio and will be reinforced, drawing on India's own experiences and those of other countries.

2.13.7 Emerging Environmental Challenges

India's economic development propelled by rapid industrial growth and urbanization is causing severe environmental problems that have local, regional, and global significance. Deforestation, soil erosion, water pollution, and land degradation continue to worsen and are hindering economic development in rural India, while the rapid industrialization and urbanization in India's booming metropolizes are straining the limits of municipal services and causing serious environmental problems.

More than 20 cities in India have populations of over one million, and some of them, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata, are among the world's most polluted. Assuming continued economic liberalization and increased urbanization, the damage to environment and health could be enormous if precautionary measures are not taken. The challenge, therefore, is to maintain the quality of air, water, and land and protect the environment by reconciling environmental, social, and economic imperatives.

Air quality data in India's major cities indicate that ambient levels of air pollutants exceed both the World Health Organization and Indian standards, particularly for particulate matter. Of the total air pollution load nationwide, vehicular sources contribute 64%, thermal power plants 16%, industries 13%, and the domestic sector 7%. Environmental effects from growing fossil fuel use can only worsen as India seeks to meet the energy needs of its growing economy. It is estimated that over 96% of India's total demand for commercial energy is met by fossil fuel with coal contributing 60% and petroleum products providing the remaining 36%.

India's rivers and streams suffer from high levels of pollution from waste generated primarily from industrial processes and municipal activities. Untreated sewage and nonindustrial wastes account for four times as much pollution as industrial effluents. While it is estimated that 75% of the wastewater generated is from municipal sources, industrial waste from large‐ and medium‐sized plants contributes to over 50% of the total pollution loads. In major cities, less than 5% of the total waste is collected and less than 25% of this treated.

To address these environmental challenges in coordination with the state governments, the central government has identified and targeted 17 highly polluting industries and 24 environmental problem areas. The chemical and engineering industries are at the top of the government's list since they are the major contributors to air, water, and waste pollution. These industries include integrated iron and steel plants, nonferrous metallurgical units, pharmaceutical and petrochemical complexes, fertilizers and pesticide plants, thermal power plants, textiles, pulp and paper, tanneries, and chloralkali units.

The Government of India has established an environmental legal and institutional system to meet these challenges within the overall framework of India's development agenda and international principles and norms. Recently, the Government put forward the National Environment Policy which provides a guide to action in regulatory reform, environmental conservation, and enactment of legislation by government agencies at all levels.

2.14.1 Scope

The United States Congress has enacted federal statutes intended to address pollution control and remediation, including for example the Clean Air Act (air pollution), the Clean Water Act (water pollution), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, or Superfund) (contaminated site cleanup). There are also federal laws governing natural resources use and biodiversity which are strongly influenced by environmental principles, including the Endangered Species Act, National Forest Management Act, and Coastal Zone Management Act. The National Environmental Policy Act, governing environmental impact review in actions undertaken or approved by the US federal government, may implicate all of these areas.

Federalism in the United States has played a role in the shape of national environmental legislation. Many federal environmental laws employ cooperative federalism mechanisms – many federal regulatory programs are administered in coordination with the US states. Furthermore, the states generally have enacted their own laws to cover areas not preempted by federal law. This includes areas where Congress had acted in limited fashion (e.g. state site cleanup laws to handle sites outside Superfund) and where Congress has left regulation primarily to the states (e.g. water resources law).

2.14.2 History

The history of environmental law in the United States can be traced back to early roots in common law doctrines, for example, the law of nuisance and the public trust doctrine. The first environmental statute was the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, which has been largely superseded by the Clean Water Act of 1972 (CWA). However, most current major environmental statutes, such as the federal statutes listed previously, were passed in the time spanning the late 1960s through the early 1980s. Prior to the passage of these statutes, most federal environmental laws were not nearly as comprehensive.

Silent Spring, a 1962 book by Rachel Carson, is frequently credited as launching the environmental movement in the United States. The book documented the effects of pesticides, especially DDT, on birds and other wildlife (Carson 1962; Hynes 1989). Among the most significant environmental disasters of the 1960s was the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, which generated considerable public outrage as Congress was considering several major pieces of environmental legislation. (See Environmental movement in the United States, Clean Water Act (1972), USEPA.)

One lawsuit that has been widely recognized as one of the earliest environmental cases is Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, decided in 1965 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, prior to passage of the major federal environmental statutes. The case helped halt the construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain in New York State. The case has been described as giving birth to environmental litigation and helping create the legal doctrine of standing to bring environmental claims (Scenic Hudson Inc. 1963). The Scenic Hudson case also is said to have helped inspire the passage of the NEPA, and the creation of such environmental advocacy groups as the Natural Resources Defense Council.

2.14.3 Legal Sources

Laws from every stratum of the laws of the United States pertain to environmental issues. Congress has passed a number of landmark environmental regulatory regimes, but many other federal laws are equally important, if less comprehensive. Concurrently, the legislatures of the 50 states have passed innumerable comparable sets of laws. These state and federal systems are foliated with layer upon layer of administrative regulation. Meanwhile, the US judicial system reviews not only the legislative enactments but also the administrative decisions of the many agencies dealing with environmental issues. Where the statutes and regulations end, the common law begins (Superfund Regulations 2017).

2.14.4 Federal Regulation

Consistent with the federal statutes that they administer, US federal agencies promulgate regulations in the CFR that fill out the broad programs enacted by Congress. Primary among these is Title 40 of the CFR, containing the regulations of the EPA. Other important CFR sections include Title 10 (energy), Title 18 (Conservation of Power and Water Resources), Title 21 (Food and Drugs), Title 33 (Navigable Waters), Title 36 (Parks, Forests and Public Property), Title 43 (Public Lands: Interior), and Title 50 (Wildlife and Fisheries).

2.14.5 Judicial Decisions

The federal and state judiciaries have played an important role in the development of environmental law in the United States, in many cases resolving significant controversy regarding the application of federal environmental laws in favor of environmental interests. The decisions of the Supreme Court in cases such as Calvert Cliffs Coordinating Committee v. U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (broadly reading the procedural requirements of NEPA), Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill (broadly reading the Endangered Species Act), and, much more recently 14 May 2015, Massachusetts v. EPA (requiring EPA to reconsider regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act) have had policy impacts far beyond the facts of the particular case.

2.14.6 Common Law

The common law of tort is an important tool for the resolution of environmental disputes that fall beyond the confines of regulated activity. Prior to the modern proliferation of environmental regulation, the doctrines of nuisance (public or private), trespass, negligence, and strict liability apportioned harm and assigned liability for activities that today would be considered pollution and likely governed by regulatory regimes. These doctrines remain relevant, and most recently have been used by plaintiffs seeking to impose liability for the consequences of global climate change (Lehman and Phelps 2004).

The common law also continues to play a leading role in American water law, in the doctrines of riparian rights and prior appropriation.

2.14.7 Administration

In the United States, responsibilities for the administration of environmental laws are divided between numerous federal and state agencies with varying, overlapping, and sometimes conflicting missions. EPA is the most well‐known federal agency, with jurisdiction over many of the country's national air, water, and waste and hazardous substance programs (USEPA 2017a, b). Other federal agencies, such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service pursue primarily conservation missions (US Fish & Wildlife Service 2018; US National Park Service 2018), while still others, such as the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, tend to focus more on beneficial use of natural resources (US Bureau of Land Management 2018; US Forest Service 2018).

Federal agencies operate within the limits of federal jurisdiction. For example, EPA's jurisdiction under the CWA is limited to “waters of the United States.” In many cases, federal laws allow for more stringent regulation by states, and of transfer of certain federally mandated responsibilities from federal to state control. US state governments, therefore, administering state law adopted under state police powers or federal law by delegation, uniformly include environmental agencies (USEPA Heath and Environmental Agencies 2018). The extent to which state environmental laws are based on or depart from federal law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Thus, while a permit to fill nonfederal wetlands might require a permit from a single state agency, larger and more complex endeavors – for example, the construction of a coal‐fired power plant – might require approvals from numerous federal and state agencies.

2.14.8 Enforcement

In the United States, violations of environmental laws are generally civil offenses, resulting in monetary penalties and, perhaps, civil sanctions such as injunction. Many environmental laws also provide for criminal penalties for egregious violations. Some federal laws, such as the CWA, also allow a US citizen to file a lawsuit against a violator, if the government has failed to take enforcement action (USEPA Clean Water Act 1972).

Environmental agencies often include separate enforcement offices, with duties including monitoring permitted activities, performing compliance inspections, issuing citations, and prosecuting wrongdoing (civilly or criminally, depending on the violation). EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance is one such agency. Others, such as the United States Park Police, carry out more traditional law enforcement activities.

Adjudicatory proceedings for environmental violations are often handled by the agencies themselves under the structures of administrative law. In some cases, appeals are also handled internally (e.g. EPA's Environmental Appeals Board). Generally, final agency determinations may subsequently be appealed to the appropriate court.

2.14.9 Education and Training

Environmental law courses are offered as elective courses in the second and third years of JD study at many American law schools. Curricula vary: an introductory course might focus on the “big five” federal statutes – National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Clean Air Act, CWA, CERCLA (Superfund), and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (or, alternatively, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) – and may be offered in conjunction with a natural resources law course. Smaller seminars may be offered on more focused topics. Some US law schools also offer an LLM or JSD specialization in environmental law. Additionally, several law schools host legal clinics that focus on environmental law, providing students with an opportunity to learn about environmental law in the context of real world disputes involving actual clients (Babich 2004). U.S. News & World Report has consistently ranked Vermont Law School, Lewis & Clark Law School, and Pace University School of Law as the top three Environmental Law programs in the United States, with Lewis & Clark and Vermont frequently trading the top spot.

Many American law schools host student‐published law journals. The environmental law reviews at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, and Lewis & Clark Law School are regularly the most‐cited such publications (http://lawlib.wlu.edu/LJ).

International environmental lawyers often receive specialized training in the form of an LLM degree at US institutions, after having a first law degree – often in another country from where they got their first law degree.

2.14.10 Vietnam

Vietnam is currently working with the USEPA on dioxin remediation and technical assistance in order to lower methane emissions. In March 2002, the United States and Vietnam signed the US–Vietnam Memorandum of Understanding on Research on Human Health and the Environmental Effects of Agent Orange/Dioxin (Vietnam Environment Administration, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment 2002).

2.15.1 Green Accounting Practices and Other Quality Manufacturing and Business Management Paradigms

Readers familiar with various quality industrial management paradigms might have noticed that green accounting and capital budgeting practices are frequently compatible with general strategies for improving manufacturing and business management. These various strategies tend to work together to form a general philosophy of quality improvement; companies and industries that are accustomed to tracking and improving the productivity of labor and capital are just now realizing that it benefits them to do the same for energy and other resources. In quality management, many companies seek external certification of their management systems through ISO or similar organizations at a national level. More recently, ISO standards have been set for management practices.

ISO 9000 lays down guidelines of how to establish and operate an efficient quality assurance system, covering most aspects of a business and its procedures, and specifies that such procedures must be documented in a quality assurance manual (ISO 9000 2018a). How the system is implemented, managed, and periodically reviewed to ensure compliance and continued effectiveness also has to be clearly documented. Customers of any ISO 9000‐approved company should feel assured that they are buying from an organization that exercises tight control over its whole business, and the end product will be consistent with the declared specifications. ISO 9000 is a recognized business management standards for quality systems or assurances, and certification is fairly common now. To be certified, companies and businesses must show that they have the required quality management system (QMS) in place (see also Section 8.1).

ISO 14000 has also developed standards for environmental management. ISO environmental management standards are similar to ISO 9000 quality management standards except that they focus on environmental management, of which total cost accounting is a component. Note that ISO 14000 certification is based on whether or not a company has systems in place for managing environmental responsibilities, but not on environment performance. It does NOT require compliance with the regulations of the country in which the company is located. In some countries, it is possible that regulations may be more stringent than the standard. It seems likely, however, that in some companies achieving certification of adherence to the standard would improve the quality of environmental practices in that country. If, as expected, many countries adopt laws that require imported products to have been produced by companies certified to be adhering to ISO 140000, then environmental practices will almost certainly be improved worldwide (ISO 14000 2018b).

ISO 14000 describes in considerable detail what a company must do without prescribing how it must or can be accomplished. Examples of the some components of the ISO 14000 environmental management systems are as follows:

1. Environmental management principles
2. Environmental labeling
3. Environmental performance evaluation
4. Life cycle assessment
5. Principles of environmental auditing
6. Terms and definitions

The environmental management system (EMS) of ISO 14001 is part of the general management system that includes organizational structure, planning activities, responsibilities, practices, procedures, and resources for developing, implementing, achieving, reviewing, and maintaining the environmental policy of an organization. It is a structured process for the achievement of continual improvement related to environmental matters. The facility has the flexibility to define its boundaries and many choose to carry out this standard with respect to the entire organization or to focus the EMS on specific operating units or activities of the organization.

The EMS enables an organization to identify the significant environmental impacts that may have arisen or that may arise from the organization's past, existing, or planned activities, products, or services. It helps the organization to identify relevant environment, legislative, and regulatory requirements that may be imposed on it. Finally, the EMS helps in planning, monitoring, auditing, corrective action, and review activities to assure compliance with established policy and allows a company to be proactive in terms of meeting anticipated new standards and compliance objectives.

The following are the advantages and disadvantages of the ISO 14000 series:

2.16.1 Introduction

It was 1970, a cornerstone year for the US modern environmental policy. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was enacted on 1 January 1970. NEPA was not based on specific legislation; instead, it referred in general manner to environmental and quality of life concerns. The Council for Environmental Quality (CEQ), established by NEPA, was one of the councils mandated to implement legislation. 22 April 1970 brought Earth Day, where thousands of demonstrators gathered all around the nation. NEPA and Earth Day were the beginning of a long, seemingly never ending debate over environmental issues.

The US Administration at that time became preoccupied with not only trying to pass more extensive environmental legislation but also implementing the laws. The White House Commission on Executive Reorganization proposed in the Reorganizational Plan of 1970 that a single, independent agency be established, separate from the CEQ. The plan was sent to Congress by President Nixon on 9 July 1970, and a new USEPA began operation on 2 December 1970. The EPA was officially born.

In many ways, the EPA is so broad. The EPA is charged to protect the nation’s air, water, and land. The EPA works with the states and local governments to develop and implement comprehensive environmental programs. The key Federal laws such as the Clean Air Act (CAA); the Clean Water Act (CWA); the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA); the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA); the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA – SUPERFUND); the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA); and the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA), all mandate involvement by 50 states and local governments in the detail of implementations.

2.17.1 Nine Prominent Federal Environmental Statues

This section provides some of the key provisions of nine federal environmental statutes that all engineers, in particular chemical engineers, should know. Taken together, these laws regulate chemicals throughout their life cycle, from creation and production to use and disposal.

The nine laws are as follows:

1. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), 1976 (regulating testing and necessary use restrictions on chemical substances)
2. The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), 1972 (the manufacture and use of pesticides)
3. The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), 1970 (to protect health and safety in the workplace)
4. The Clean Air Act (CAA), 1970 (to protect and enhance the quality of the Nation's air resources)
5. The Clean Water Act (CWA), 1972 (to restore and maintain the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the Nation's water resources)
6. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), 1976 (primarily the regulation of hazardous and nonhazardous waste treatment, storage, and safe disposal)
7. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA, also known as Superfund), 1980 (the cleanup of abandoned and inactive hazardous waste sites)
8. The Emergency Planning and Community Right‐to‐Know Act (EPCRA), 1986 (responding to chemical emergencies and reporting of toxic chemical usage)
9. The Pollution Prevention Act (PPA), 1990 (a proactive approach to reducing environmental impact using pollution prevention hierarchy: minimize generation, minimize introduction, segregation, reuse, and recycle, recover energy value in waste, treat for discharge, and safe disposal)

A summary of these prominent federal environmental statues is provided in Table 2.1. The most important regulatory backgrounds for each statute are slated along with a listing of some key provisions for chemical processing facilities.