An annual pollution prevention report by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) says Michigan is among the top 10 states in the nation for buildings certified "green" by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Released in March, the 2004 Pollution Prevention (P2) Annual Report, Pollution Prevention...Making It Easy to Be Green, highlights Michigan's innovative approaches to achieve reductions in pollution. Under a law authored by MEC in the 1990s, DEQ is required to issue annual updates on its pollution prevention progress.

"Protecting the environment is essential to the creation of clean and prosperous communities," said DEQ Director Steven Chester. "P2 focuses on eliminating waste at its source along with environmentally-sound recycling and is an important tool towards achieving our core goal of a healthy environment and a healthy economy."

Over 850 Michigan facilities have made public commitments to P2 as part of the DEQ's partnership programs, the report says. These partners represent a diverse set of businesses, including small metal finishing, automotive assembly plants, golf courses, printers, marinas, power generation facilities and pulp/paper mills.

Other accomplishments:

• This year, Michigan became the first state in the country to enter into a cooperative agreement with automobile manufacturers to offer a statewide collection program for the recovery of mercury automotive switches from end-of-life vehicles. (Three other states have passed laws requiring the recycling of the switches, which contain toxic mercury.)
  
  
• The Retired Engineer Technical Assistant Program identified over $2.1 million in potential savings that can be achieved annually through the adoption of various P2 and energy conservation measures.

Copies of the report may be obtained, free of charge, by contacting the Environmental Assistance Center at 800-662-9278 or by downloading from the DEQ Internet Web site at: www.michigan.gov/deqp2