In Unit III, we are learning about pollution prevention (P2) audits. Select a facility where, hypothetically, you would want to conduct a P2 audit (which could be your home, your work, a factory in your city, a manufacturing plant where you work, a retail store, military base, or other of your choosing). What made you choose this facility, and what would interest you the most in conducting an audit? If you have previously conducted or been a part of a P2 audit, please discuss your experience.
ALSO PLEASE REPLY TO ANOTHER STUDENTS COMMENT BELOW WITH A POSITIVE COMMENT RESPONSE
LOGAN:
My place of work would be an interesting place to conduct a thorough P2 audit. I work at a light products petroleum terminal. The facility consists of over 30 storage tanks for gasoline, diesel fuel, butane, and fuel additives. There is also a dock for barges, several miles of pipeline, two truck offload stations, and 10 loading racks for trucks. With this being said, there is always the opportunity for pollution if equipment fails or from human error. As far as my company goes, there are lots of safety measures in place to protect against pollution and a vapor recovery unit is used to capture vapors instead of letting them go to the atmosphere. My biggest concern comes from third-party truck drivers. Approximately 500 tanker truck loads of fuel go out of the facility a day. Many of the drivers are not as cautious as we are when it comes to controlling liquid and vapor pollution. There have been several instances of them making human errors or issues with their trucks causing small releases. A P2 audit may be able to identify ways to reduce the number of incidents that occur.
I have never been part of a formal P2 audit. However, the company I work for is always encouraging us to find ways to reduce wastes and pollution. For example, we reduced the frequency of oil changes on some of our pumps that do not get used frequently. Also, we upgraded our vapor recovery unit to optimize its performance.
