[CPEO-MEF] Tactical Missile Recycling

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[from the April, 2001 edition of the Army Environmental Center's
electronic newsletter, "Fielding Environmental Solutions"]

ESTABLISHING MISSILE RECYCLING CAPABILITIES AT ARMY DEPOTS

The US Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM) is setting a national
precedent with the establishment of a "first of its kind" Missile
Recycling Capability (MRC) for the safe disposition of obsolete and
over-aged tactical missiles in an environmentally responsible manner. 
The MRC provides the Government with an unprecedented recycling
capability for environmentally superior and cost effective disposition
of tactical missiles as an alternative to traditional Open Burn/Open
Detonation (OB/OD) destruction processes.  The MRC is designed to be a
total Resource Recovery and Recycling (R3) technology, and it is
directly applicable to the vast majority of the missiles in the Army,
Navy, Air Force, and NATO inventories. The MRC will significantly reduce
the environmental impacts associated with the emerging Army
demilitarization requirement of over 600,000 tactical missiles over the
next 10-15 years.

An integrated MRC will minimize pollution, waste, and environmental
damage at Government facilities.  The R3 technology to recover missile
assets exists.  Destructive incineration and water polluting processes
are avoided. The MRC meets the Legislative requirements of the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Clean Air Act (Hazardous Air
Pollutants and emissions), and Executive Order (EO) mandates for
environmentally compliant tactical missile demilitarization.

[I don't know the details of this process, but the developers include
members of the team who ten years ago pioneered an environmentally sound
method of demilitarizing large solid rocket motors. - LS]

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org

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