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2002 Toxics Release Inventory Released
Release Date: 06/23/2004
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(06/23/04) EPA issued its 15th annual Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) today, the annual report on the amount of toxic chemicals released into the environment by reporting facilities for calendar year 2002. Almost 25,000 facilities reported on nearly 650 chemicals. While the TRI Public Data Release will show that there was a 15 percent decrease in total disposal or other releases into the environment from 2001 to 2002, that decrease is largely attributable to a court decision that affected reporting by the metal mining sector. Without metal mining, there was a 5 percent increase from 2001 to 2002, primarily due to increases reported by one facility. Looking at the overall history of TRI, trends analysis shows chemical releases decreased 49 percent since the inception of TRI in 1988. EPA provides the American public with data on chemical emissions and releases in many formats from many different databases. TRI tracks the chemicals and industrial sectors specified by the Emergency Community Right to Know Act of 1986 and its amendments. EPA's efforts to improve TRI data quality and to make data publicly available sooner has been made possible by increased electronic reporting from the TRI community - a direct result of the advances in E-Government and called for in the President's Management Agenda. Over 23 percent of TRI reports this year were submitted electronically through EPA’s Environmental Information Exchange Network, a substantial paper burden reduction for industry. The TRI data and background information are available to the public at https://www.epa.gov/tri . Communities can also quickly and easily identify local facilities and chemical releases by using the TRI explorer mapping tool, available at: https://www.epa.gov/triexplorer .
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