The Toxics Release Inventory: Your Right to Know About Industrial Chemicals

Every year, thousands of industrial facilities across the United States legally release millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, water, and land. The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program - established by Congress under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act - makes this data publicly available, empowering communities to understand and act on the chemical risks in their neighborhoods.

What Is the Toxics Release Inventory?

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is a publicly accessible database maintained by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that tracks the management and release of more than 770 individually listed chemicals and 33 chemical categories by industrial and federal facilities across the United States. Facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use listed chemicals above established threshold quantities are required to submit annual reports detailing how much of each chemical was released to the environment, transferred off-site, or managed through recycling, treatment, or energy recovery.

The TRI was created in response to the 1984 Bhopal, India chemical disaster - in which a methyl isocyanate gas release from a Union Carbide plant killed thousands of people - and the subsequent recognition that American communities had little knowledge of what toxic chemicals were being used and released in their neighborhoods.

What TRI Tracks

TRI reporting covers releases and transfers across multiple environmental media:

• Air releases: Stack emissions (from industrial stacks and vents) and fugitive emissions (leaks, evaporation, and other non-stack releases).
• Water releases: Direct discharges to rivers, lakes, streams, bays, and oceans.
• Land releases: On-site land disposal, surface impoundments, land treatment, underground injection, and other disposal on facility property.
• Underground injection: Disposal of toxic waste by injection into deep underground wells.
• Off-site transfers: Waste shipped to other facilities for treatment, storage, disposal, or recycling.

Chemicals of Greatest Concern

The TRI list includes a diverse range of chemical hazards. Among those of greatest public health concern:

• Lead and lead compounds: Neurotoxic, with no safe level of exposure for children. Historically released from smelters, battery manufacturers, and other metal processing facilities.
• Mercury and mercury compounds: Potent neurotoxins that methylate in aquatic environments and bioaccumulate in fish. Major sources include coal-fired power plants and certain industrial processes.
• Dioxins and furans: Highly toxic persistent organic pollutants formed as byproducts of combustion and chlorine-based industrial processes.
• Carcinogens: The TRI list includes numerous known and suspected carcinogens including benzene, formaldehyde, hexavalent chromium, and ethylene oxide.

Using TRI Data for Community Protection

The EPA's TRI Explorer tool (epa.gov/toxics-release-inventory-tri-program) allows anyone to search TRI data by facility, chemical, geographic area, or industry sector. Communities near industrial facilities can use TRI data to understand their chemical exposure profile, track trends in facility releases, and engage meaningfully with facility operators and regulators.

Environmental justice research has consistently shown that communities of color and low-income communities experience disproportionately higher TRI chemical burdens, reflecting historical patterns of industrial facility siting.

Limitations of TRI Data

TRI data is self-reported by facilities and subject to reporting thresholds - facilities using chemicals below threshold quantities are not required to report. Reporting errors and omissions occur. TRI does not cover all industrial chemical users; retail and service sectors, for example, are largely exempt. Despite these limitations, TRI remains the most comprehensive publicly available database of industrial toxic chemical releases in the United States.