Each spring, all over Ohio, boats come out of their plastic-wrapped winter hibernation for another season on Lake Erie and other waterways. In the fall, those boats get a new coating of shrink-wrap to weather for the Ohio winter.

2020 marked another successful year of enhanced services to Ohio’s businesses and communities through Ohio EPA’s Division of Environmental and Financial Assistance (DEFA). Through our team’s efforts, we surpassed prior years of assistance and service to our customers.

Brody Betsch and Jon van Dommelen

Lexie Andrews and Katie Courtright

Congress passed the Pollution Prevention (P2) Act in 1990. It was designed – in large part - to help U.S. businesses transform the way they think about manufacturing products and processes, and how to reduce costs by minimizing waste.

Since March 2020, connecting electronically and virtually has become the new normal. Since March, we are seeing more customers logging onto live webinars and watching recordings (more than 5,200 in 2020), using our chat feature to ask questions, and subscribing to electronic updates.

Meet the Staff – April Stevens and Dan Halterman

Practice Greenhealth recently announced the 2020 recipients of the Top 25 Environmental Excellence Awards, the most prestigious environmental achievement for health care. They recognized health care organizations across 10 areas of sustainability through their annual environmental excellence awards.

Ohio EPA has been promoting P2 and sustainability through recognition and info sharing since 1986, originally as a Governor’s award for material waste management and then for pollution prevention.

Each year the Small Business Environmental Assistance Program/Small Business Ombudsman (SBEAP/SBO) National Steering Committee (NSC) recognizes outstanding environmental leadership among small businesses and small business assistance providers. Because of COVID, 2020 awards were mailed to awardees and photos of awardees with new releases continue being added to their website.