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EPA Funding Helps Businesses in New Jersey Prevent Pollution and Protect Against Storm Surges

Release Date: 11/10/2014
Contact Information: John Martin, (212) 637-3662, martin.johnj@epa.gov

(New York, N.Y.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded $207,662 to organizations in New Jersey to fund projects that will help small and medium-sized businesses reduce pollution. These grants were awarded to Rutgers University and Rowan University.

“EPA helps businesses reduce the use of toxic materials, save energy, protect human health and save money,” said Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. “The strategy is simple: it’s always better not to generate waste in the first place. It’s better for the environment and it’s better for a company’s bottom line.”

The EPA awarded Rutgers University $117,000 to develop an online tool to identify industrial facilities that are candidates for pollution prevention assistance. The tool will help communities and government agencies identify industrial facilities that may be especially vulnerable to releases and discharges of hazardous materials due to climate change impacts, such as storm surges. Rutgers will work with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the Rutgers Small Business Development Center to reach out to vulnerable facilities and offer technical assistance to help them reduce the amount of hazardous materials that they generate or use. Facilities will learn how to use less toxic chemicals in their manufacturing processes and general operations. This will reduce the risk that toxics chemicals will enter our waterways in the event of climate change-related storm surges.

With the help of a $90,000 EPA grant, Rowan University will assist the specialty chemical industry in reducing the toxic chemicals they use by using green engineering. Rowan will build upon their previous EPA-funded pollution prevention program that focused on pharmaceutical companies and will apply their expertise to the specialty and performance chemical manufacturing sector.

For more information on EPA Region 2’s pollution prevention program, visit https://www.epa.gov/region02/p2/.

Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eparegion2 and Facebook at http://facebook.com/eparegion2.

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