To enhance our environmental performance the City of Tacoma's Environmental Services Department has implemented Environmental and Sustainability Management Systems (ESMS) for the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant and Solid Waste Management.
What is an ESMS?
An ESMS is a management tool based on the plan, and is designed to assist an organization to reduce their impacts on the environment, increase sustainability, ensure compliance with environmental regulations, and begin to integrate environmental considerations into everyday business operations. Environmental Services used the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) 14001 Standard as the framework to build an effective management system.
To outline Environmental Services' commitment to improving our environmental performance under the ESMS, an Environmental Policy was issued.
Significant Environmental Aspects
The system requires the organization to evaluate all of the facility's processes and procedures to determine their environmental impact. After evaluating the processes of the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, three significant environmental aspects have been identified and goals set to improve their impacts on the environment:
Solid Waste Management Division identified four significant environmental aspects and developed the following goals to improve their impacts:
Air Emissions - Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Potential Spill - Reduce the number of spills
Fire Potential - Reduce the frequency of trailer fires; and reduce firefighting discharges to the storm system
Resource Consumption - Reduce contamination in residential recycling stream