MAKING THE REGULATORY PROCESS IRRELEVANT

The paper will venture to argue that Zero Discharge would be the goal for industry in the future. As such, it would make the regulatory process irrelevant. The paper will point to already successes with zero discharges with chlorinated solvent elimination, cyanide chemical substitution, silver elimination with digital photography, and aqueous cleaning process changes. It is hoped that a prototype industry of the 21st Century will be like what was described by Mr. Ray Anderson of Interface, Inc. in his book, Mid-Course Correction:“The prototype company of the 21st Century is strongly service oriented, resource-efficient, wasting nothing, solar-driven, cyclic (not linear), and strongly connected with our communities, our customers and our suppliers … Furthermore, this 21st Century company is way ahead of the regulatory process. The regulatory process has become irrelevant… This company is growing too, not at Earth's expense nor at our descendant's expense, but at the expense of inefficient competitors…”