Science Steps Up War On Hazardous Waste

Three years ago, Dennis Darnall was comfortably and, one would have thought, firmly entrenched in the groves of academe. As professor of chemistry at New Mexico State University and director of the school's science research center, he held a position of high rank. And thanks to federal and state grants, he even had the opportunity to indulge in his scientific passion: devising ways that algae could be used to recover metal from industrial wastewaters. A scientist's paradise? Not for Darnall; he yearned for something more. So in January 1986, he and three of his fellow faculty members founded Bio-recovery Systems Inc., specializing in the development of innovative approaches to industrial trash recycling based on waste-eating algae. Today, instead of toiling in the confines of a classroom or university lab, the 46-year-old Darnall--the new company's president--spends much of his time touring the country, seeking clients for his patented algae technology. And Bio-recovery Systems' success (1988 revenue could reach $1.5 million) has enabled the firm to employ 40 scientists and engineers devoted to improving the existing technology and finding new areas of application for it. Such entrepreneurial career shifts are happening more and more often among scientists whose life's work is waste. The nation--indeed the world--is increasingly becoming aware of nightmarish pollution problems. So as geologists, chemists, hydrologists, biologists, and scientists in other disciplines devise new technologies to prevent, minimize, or even rid the environment of the substances that pollute, for-profit opportunities have blossomed. Some of these opportunities have been purely entrepreneurial, with scientists like Darnall forming companies or becoming full-time consultants. Indeed, scientists with a risk-taking bent are helping to build an entirely new industry--waste management--whose worth is expected to surpass $30 billion over the next few years. But in many cases, bench scientists and academic researchers without the entrepreneurial drive of a Dennis Darnall but who boast the skills needed to attack waste are finding a niche in established waste-services companies and in the growing number of industrial corporations that have learned they must begin to deal with their own pollution. In fact, the waste management effort is gobbling up scientists of all stripes. "This area is probably one of the most interdisciplinary of all industries," explains George Vander Velde, vice president of science and technology at Chemical Waste Management Inc., one of the largest firms specializing in cleanup and disposal work. "We're dealing with process, computerization, and transportation, just to name a few aspects." A Unified Europe's New War On Waste LONDON--Europe's waste management business is at the threshold of a commercial and technological revolution. Today, most of Europe's waste is handled by small and medium-sized enterprises operating under a crazy-quilt of standards that vary from nation to nation, even region to region. All this will change, however, as 1992 approaches and political and economic barriers fall in the face of a common European market. The European Commission (the governing body of the European Economic Community) is beginning to push for uniform waste management standards. Analysts expect that such a change will foster both increased international cooperation and consolidation of waste management businesses. And these trends should translate into new opportunities within established firms for environmental scientists and engineers throughout Europe. What no one knows is the pace of change. But the trends have already begun. The European Comission, for example, has drafted legislation to harmonize emission standards for municipal solid waste incinerators across Europe, and it is currently preparing further rules on landfills and clinical and hazardous waste incinerators. The commission's goal is to significantly reduce the problems of waste in Europe by issuing strict standards--and in doing so it will create significant market opportunities for advanced waste management technologies. In the municipal waste incineration field, for example, 22% of the 525 facilities operational in EEC countries have no emission abatement equipment at all. And just 7% of these facilities are equipped with both electrostatic precipitators and flue gas scrubbers, which, under the forthcoming EEC rules, will be mandatory for existing as well as new plants. The new technology will be accompanied by the formation of international groups, ending the pattern of local or regional waste management services. Early in 1988, for example, a leading British landfill company, Biffa, acquired a landfill business in Belgium, where there is growing pressure for higher disposal standards. International joint ventures are on the rise, as well. This summer, for instance, U.S.-based International Technology Corp. joined with large engineering concerns in Spain and Italy, where major business opportunities have been created by government proposals to establish regional networks of waste treatment and incineration facilities. In the United States, waste management opportunities have spawned a number of entrepreneurial companies (see story, page 1). But in Europe, both the high cost of developing advanced technology to address such problems and the increased competition across open borders is expected to spark a trend toward fewer, larger, and more professional waste management businesses that have the technical and financial resources necessary to comply with higher standards. One U.K. environmental consultant firm, ECOTEC, affirms that "costs [of waste management] are rising much faster than inflation virtually everywhere, and the trend is likely to continue for some years." The scale of the resources that will be needed to keep abreast of tightening legal constraints on waste disposal is evident in the investments in hazardous waste incineration planned in West Germany and the U.K. Within the past year, the three German chemical majors, BASF, Bayer, and Hoechst, have announced plans to spend $149 million on additional in-house incineration capacity, and the federal government foresees a need for another 14 new facilities. In the U.K., specialist disposal contractors Cleanaway, Ocean Environmental Management and Re-Chem Environmental Services all intend to build new incinerators, while a fourth is planned by the United States' International Technology Corp. The total investment involved is about $117 million. So the news for European scientists in the waste management sector is mixed. Increased legislation, costs, and international ventures will all act to decrease the opportunities for entrepreneurially minded scientists to play a significant role in Europe's waste management industry. But these same factors should create an increased demand for qualified scientists within the existing chemical, engineering, and waste management firms. Marek Mayer is editor of Environmental Data Services Report in London. Because of the diversity of efforts to prevent or manage pollution, hard figures on industry growth are not available. But financiers and waste specialists report that firms chartered to grapple with waste have by now sprung up in every state in the U.S. According to Venture Economics, a Wellesley, Mass.-based research firm focusing on venture capital activities, in 1987 the amount invested in firms that specialize in pollution control and recycling reached $40 million, doubling the venture capital investments of the previous year. The problem of pollution, of course, is mind-boggling. Each year industry and government generate some 540 billion pounds of hazardous waste, a mass of trash that currently is being dumped at an estimated 30,000 sites around the country, according to Inform, a New York-based environmental research firm. And then there's the 410 tons of nonhazardous solid waste created in U.S. cities and towns each day. All in all, an estimated 50,000 pounds of waste of various types is created each year in the U.S. for evey one of the nation's 240 million citizens. "Some people are talking about a cost of $100 billion just to do proper clean-ups" of the waste-dumping sites that have been deemed especially hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to David Sarokin, a specialist with the EPA's Right-To-Know program, which requires companies to alert communities in which they operate to the use of potentially threatening new chemicals or processes. Today, federal and state governments, in response to community outcries, are already funneling billions of dollars into numerous programs to study, manage and clean up unwanted pollution (see story, page 7.) And all of this activity has boosted the demand for scientists. In discussing the nation's need for science professionals, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) wrote in a 1985 study that "there will be an unavoidable shortage of experienced technical specialists in all disciplines due to the rapid growth projected for these [cleanup] activities." Further stimulating the boom in opportunities for scientists is academia's growing recognition of waste management as a distinct discipline, worthy of its own specialists and its own curriculum. Some universities, for example, are developing technical assistance programs to help local businesses manage pollution hotspots and at the same time provide future scientists with hands-on experience in pollution research and waste management technologies as a part of their course of study (see story, page 7). And in corporate America, at least three important incentives are fostering cleanup activities: First, it has become clear that effective waste prevention and minimization can save the big companies a lot of money. Second, waste management is likely to reduce the risk of lawsuits from angry communities and workers claiming injurious exposure to hazardous materials. And third, these activities make for good public relations at a time when industry is under attack for displaying what some maintain is callous disregard for the environment. By establishing pollution reduction programs, a company can mollify wary neighbors and regulators showing greater willingness to impose tough standards on businesses. "We see a movement toward operating within the public's approval rather than sitting back and fighting," says Hal Corbett, senior vice president at Monsanto Corp., one of several large industrial corporations that have formed special programs to minimize waste. (See related story, page 6.) Joel Hirschhorn, a senior associate with the OTA, sums up the growing need for waste management scientists by noting: "There's a zillion consulting firms out there and several hundred relatively new companies that are technology developers with waste treatment techniques. Between 100 and 250 firms are less than five years old--and they're desperate to hire. Just about any scientist with a bachelor's degree can get a job." And it would appear that Hirschhorn's phrase "just about any scientist" can be taken literally. Among others, there is a demand for hydrologists for groundwater and surface water, toxicologists, geologists, industrial hygienists, biologists, organic chemists, geochemists, epidemiologists, and physicists--the actual kind of specialists required for any single effort being dictated by the approach to the waste problem. In general, waste management efforts are divided, not surprisingly, into two "camps," treatment and prevention. Darnall's Bio-recovery Systems, for instance, which the former New Mexico chemistry professor launched with $40,000 of his own money and another $210,000 from a circle of friends, associates, and former students, is in the treatment camp, where existing waste is reduced or eliminated. The company's goal is to not only clean up pollution, but to actually turn a problem into an asset, making a profit by recycling the trash. Bio-recovery's technique involves the use of algae, either fresh water or marine, which are immobilized in a polymer bond that keeps them in place like a fishnet. The algae mass, trapped in this netlike substance, is then ground up into tiny beadlike granules, which, in turn, are poured like sand into a metal pipe that can be as thin as a pencil or as thick as a silo. Industrial wastewater is then channeled through this pipe, and the algae cells--due to their biomolecular structure--attract atom-sized metal particles, which cling to the algae. A chemical solution is subsequently run through the pipe, rinsing the loaded-up algae of the metal particles; the particles, in turn, are retrieved from the liquid residue through an electroplating process that yields a thin film of metal resembling aluminum foil. And the algae, which are reusable, are ready to filter the next flow of wastewater. Different chemical stripping solutions as well as different algae--which have varying metal-binding properties--are used, depending on the metal intended for retrieval. Currently, Darnall is marketing Bio-recovery's equipment to recover such heavy metals as nickel, copper, chrome, zinc, gold, silver, platinum, plutonium, tin and lead, among others. Because regulations have clamped down on the disposal of metal sludges in landfills, firms such as Bio-recovery are in demand. But most pollution isn't susceptible to being turned into profit. So a number of companies have sprung up to on the principle of preventing the production of waste in the first place. ChemCycle Corp., founded in Boston by chemist Robert Pojasek, is a good example of a young company operating on this premise. Until three years ago, Pojasek was employed by a large New England consulting firm that specializes in the design of air and water pollution control techniques. In striking out on his own, he decided to focus on strategies that might be taken during a product's design phase that would reduce the amount of waste generated when the product was actually in the process of being made. "If you didn't have waste, you wouldn't have a hazard," says Pojasek. "The trick is to get further back in the process. Instead of asking how to get the yellow substance out of a fluid, ask: `How did the yellow get into the fluid?' " To address such questions, Pojasek founded ChemCycle in August 1986, with about $200,000, some of which was his own money. Today, the consulting startup employs 15 scientists and is profitable. Pojasek says he expects 1988 revenue to reach $2 million, with $3.5 million projected for 1989. Among ChemCycle's completed jobs was the reduction of volatile organic carbons emitted into the air by a textile-dyeing operation that makes printed fabrics for women's clothing. In late 1987, the textile company was in danger of being closed by state regulators because the carbons being belched out of its 21 smokestacks were contributing to the creation of smog and ozone. The hazardous emissions occurred when mineral spirits, used as a bath for textiles during the dyeing process, were heated in large vats. The client had been contemplating an expensive investment in customized air pollution control equipment, but it first contacted ChemCycle to see whether their was a more cost-efficient alternative. And ChemCycle did come up with a better idea--one that remedied the emission problem, yet avoided a significant capital outlay. The ChemCycle solution involved switching the textile-dyeing bath solution from mineral spirits to oils that produce no hazardous carbons when heated--and then lowering the temperature of the dye plant's processes to further reduce smoke from the oil. Despite the obvious demand for the ideas and services offered by new companies like Bio-recovery and ChemCycle, launching a startup still takes courage. The 40-year-old Pojasek recalls: "Some of my friends thought I was stupid to give up the stability of a paying job and most of my life savings. And it's a hard sell to get in to see potential clients--you put in a pound of flesh each time. But the entry barriers (to opening a firm) are low, and I think there'll be plenty of work to go around." Darnall, meanwhile, likens his entrepreneurial experience thus far to a ride on a rollercoaster. "[The startup process] wasn't traumatic," he recalls, "but when I went to people I didn't know [for financial backing], selling myself was a bit like prostitution." He notes that it took him almost a full year to land his startup's first contract--a year that Darnall recalls as a lean and depressing one, when he often questioned the wisdom of the venture. Since then, however, the young company's prospects have improved considerably, with a steady flow of contracts and an abundance of outside investment. One venture capital firm has provided $1.1 million, and a 20% stake in the company was sold recently to Manville Corp., the Colorado building-materials company. Darnall's holdings now amount to about 15%. High Priority It's likely that more and more scientists will be wanting to board the entrepreneurial rollercoaster that Darnall has ridden so successfully. A clientele needy for innovative waste management services and equipment is already in place and, presumably, will be growing rapidly. With such consciousness-raising events as Buffalo, N.Y.'s Love Canal, the disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, and the growing concern over the greenhouse effect, pollution has become much more than just a corporate problem--it is now way up on the list of society's priorities. And, despite what some claim is slow progress in grappling with pollution, there can be no question that in the coming years cleanup and prevention efforts will advance at a faster pace and require specialists well-versed in offering solutions. For scientists with the proper experience and a keen ambition, it appears that today's surge in opportunities is only the tip of the landfill. Edward R. Silverman is a staff writer for Crain's New York Business.

Science Steps Up War On Hazardous Waste

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of