These spreadsheets are designed to measure the environmental and economic performance results of pollution prevention activities.

EPA has a suite of emissions estimation tools for a variety of applications. They include:

• WebFIRE, which includes EPA's recommended emissions estimation factors for criteria and hazardous air pollutants.
• TANKS, which estimates volatile organic compound (VOC) and hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from fixed- and floating-roof storage tanks.
• SPECIATE, EPA's repository of Total Organic Compound (TOC) and Particulate Matter (PM) speciated profiles for a variety of sources for use in source apportionment studies.
• Landfill Gas Emissions Model (LandGEM), an automated estimation tool with a Microsoft Excel interface that can be used to estimate emissions rates for total landfill gas, methane, carbon dioxide, nonmethane organic compounds, and individual air pollutants from municipal solid waste landfills.
• WATER9, a wastewater treatment model, consists of analytical expressions for estimating air emissions of individual waste constituents in wastewater collection, storage, treatment, and disposal facilities; a database listing many of the organic compounds; and procedures for obtaining reports of constituent fates, including air emissions and treatment effectiveness.

Did you ever wonder what reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 1 million metric tons means in everyday terms? The greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator can help you understand just that, translating abstract measurements into concrete terms you can understand, such as the annual emissions from cars, households, or power plants. This calculator may be useful in communicating your greenhouse gas reduction strategy, reduction targets, or other initiatives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Every paint, even powder, contains two kinds of components, that end up in two different places.  The parts you want (the "solids") end up on what you are painting.  The rest (the liquids, or "volatiles") end up in the air.  As a painter, you may not be immediately interested in what happens to the volatiles once they have floated off.  But some volatiles (the so-called volatile organic compounds, or "VOCs") contribute to air pollution, and some volatiles (the hazardous air pollutants, or "HAPs") are known to be particularly toxic.  So whether or not you're paying much attention to the volatiles, you should be aware that the environmental regulatory agencies are.

That is why there are regulations that limit the amount of VOCs or HAPs that you are permitted to release.  In order to determine whether you are operating within those limits, you are asked to calculate the VOC or HAP content of the paints you use.  But the calculations can be somewhat complicated.

The PCRC has developed the Emissions Calculator to help you through those calculations.  If you are not familiar with the ideas behind emissions calculations, please read this guide.  It is intended to help you understand the thinking behind the regulations, and to show why some of the complications are unavoidable if the regulations are to be applied fairly and effectively.

Contents

1. Introduction -- How Much Pollution in that Paint?
2. VOCs or HAPs per gallon of paint
3. VOCs or HAPs per gallon of paint, less water (and "non-VOC" or "non-HAP" solvents)
4. VOCs per gallon of solids
5. VOCs per weight of solids
6. What solvents are considered "non-VOC" solvents?
7. List of coatings MACTs and corresponding measurements