Environmental & Sustainability Blog

The world of product category rules, life cycle assessments, and environmental product declarations can be more than a bit confusing. For one, there’s too many letters, acronyms, and obscure concepts. Without some idea what PCR, LCA, and EPD means, some pretty important ideas and tools are going to be ignored by a lot of potentially interested parties.

Resource Management Associates recently held the 2013 NJ Environmental Seminar for a wide mix of industry professionals, and covered a wide variety of New Jersey environmental regulations. We featured topics interesting to anyone in the construction materials industries in New Jersey. I was surprised; there was a large amount of individuals there who were interested in recycling in New Jersey. Great! I love to hear about more and more people looking to start recycling in New Jersey! It’s a great business, and a great way to help preserve the Garden State and its resources for future generations. People were interested either because they wanted to start up a New Jersey recycling business or because they were currently in the recycling business already. Those that are already running a recycling operation mostly wanted to learn about how to expand their operation, or were having challenges with certain New Jersey recycling regulations.

Now that the SARA Tier II Reporting March 1, 2013 deadline has passed, it’s time to turn our attention to the upcoming TRI Reporting deadline of July 1, 2013. If you don’t recall, TRI Reporting, TRI Form R Reporting, or toxic release inventory reporting, is required at any facility that exceeds the reporting thresholds (usually 25,000 pounds) of certain listed toxic chemicals during the past year that were processed, manufactured or otherwise used at that plant.

You may or may not know, but here at RMA we offer environmental training as a service. We get called in to provide a variety of different types of environmental training, from NPDES and stormwater training to SPCC training to environmental management system training and more. And we're good at it. Why? Because we're experts, and we know what we're doing.

We recently conducted our 2013 New Jersey Environmental Seminar to a packed house of industrial professionals, and we covered a lot of ground regarding the latest developments in New Jersey environmental regulations and trends. A really good audience was present who asked some insightful questions, and I'll try and cover some of the top questions in a few blog posts here.

Anyone who does business in New Jersey knows that New Jersey environmental regulations are among the toughest, most comprehensive environmental regulations there are. And, you'll also likely know that they are among the most confusing and complicated set of environmental regulations anywhere in the country, and that failure to comply with this maze of regulations can have very bad consequences, including significant monetary fines, increased environmental monitoring requirements, and other forms of enforcement action.

SPCC requirements? SPCC training? Most people in industry today don't understand what SPCC regulations are or if they apply to them. They don't know that any facility that stores any type of oil in excess of 1,320 gallons and has any chance to release, discharge, or spill oil directly or indirectly to any surface water body is required by Federal law to have a Spill, Prevention, Control and Countermeasure plan, or simply put, an SPCC Plan.

Concrete reclaimers. We've all heard of them. Some of us are passionate about how they can help our facilities. Others aren't. The use of a concrete reclaimer at your site depends on many factors. Not sure if you could benefit from a concrete reclaimer or not? Let Doug Ruhlin of Resource Management Associates help you determine if a concrete reclaimer is right for your ready mix or precast operation.

I've written a lot on here about TRI Reporting lately. For those of you that don't know what TRI Reporting is, it's a Federal requirement that requires facilities annually report the manufacture, processing, or otherwise use of toxic chemicals in excess of reporting thresholds. It's also called EPCRA Section 313 Reporting, Toxic Release Reporting, or Form R Reporting, for the USEPA form identification.

As I gaze into the crystal ball for the year 2013, I believe that there are multiple environmental and sustainability issues that will come to the forefront for the concrete and construction materials industries during the New Year. But here's five that I think that might really make a difference to you and your operation during 2013.