TWISP, located at Area G of the Laboratory's solid waste disposal site at Technical Area 54, leads the effort at Los Alamos to retrieve waste-containing drums and fiberglass reinforced boxes, some of them from beneath earthen cover, and place them into inspectable storage. The emphasis at TWISP is to perform this task with the utmost safety, protecting both the workers and the environment.
"The Green Zia Awards are given by NMED as part of the Environmental Alliance, an agreement between private, public and state organizations," said Brian Thompson, Green Zia program coordinator at the Laboratory. "The awards have been in development for five years, but this is the first year that actual awards have been given."
"This award is not just for one thing but for the TWISP operation as a whole," said Thompson. "It's management by fact, based on real data, that shows the real effects of specific actions." One of the effects of the systematic approach taken at TWISP is a reduction in secondary wastes, boxes, paper, plastics, etc., of 90 percent.
The Green Zia Awards are given at three levels, "Excellence," "Achievement," and "Commitment," based on the degree of development and implementation of a pollution prevention-focused environmental management system. The TWISP award is given at the "Achievement" level. Of the 22 awards given this year none were at the "Excellence" level.
"The awards are based on evaluations by impartial and objective judges, they are very careful to guard against any conflict of interest, it's all independent," said Alicia Hale, Graduate Research Assistant in the Laboratory's Environmental Stewardship Office. "Those evaluations are validated by a panel of judges who say, in effect, what applications deserve an award."
Although the Lab is extremely pleased and proud to have been awarded a Green Zia this year, the application process alone has tremendous value as a learning tool, according to Thompson. "One key aspect is that all applications get feedback reports that point out the program's significant strengths and opportunities for improvement. This is really the meat of the program-it lets us see what we are doing well and what we can work on. Just putting together the application is kind of a self-assessment in the first place," he said.
TWISP project leader Gilbert Montoya said the men and women working on TWISP also gain from participation in the process. "Almost 100 percent of the suggestions for process improvement came directly from our employees who had all kinds of ideas of how to reduce the amount of waste we generate and to improve health and safety as a result," said Montoya. "The workers were very involved in the application process, more than willing to participate. This is totally value-added because of the positive reinforcement for the employees."
The bottom line in waste minimization, of course, is the safeguarding of our environment, but there are other benefits as well. "This represents not just waste minimization, but also improved health and safety practices," said Hale. "And, waste minimization actually saves money. We call it 'going beyond compliance' because when you reduce waste you improve waste management efficiency, that improvement reduces expenditures-more efficient processes cost less money, it's that simple."
This 1999 Green Zia Award for TWISP is just a start for the Environmental Stewardship Office according to Thompson, "Our long-term goal is to eventually win a Green Zia at the "Excellence" level for the Lab as a whole. There's this image we have, people don't think we focus on environmental excellence, but we do, and we want to demonstrate that by achieving our long-term goal," he said.
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and Washington Group International for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.