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TRI for Communities
Community Quick Links
What is the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program?
The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is a publicly available EPA database that contains detailed information on toxic chemical releases and other waste management activities reported annually by certain covered industry groups as well as federal facilities. This inventory was established under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) and expanded by the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990. The goal of TRI is to empower citizens, through information, to hold companies and local governments accountable in terms of how toxic chemicals are managed.
Armed with TRI data, communities have more power to hold companies accountable and make informed decisions about how toxic chemicals are to be managed in their area. The data often spurs companies to focus on their chemical management practices since they are being measured and made public. In addition, the data serves as a rough indicator of environmental progress over time. EPA compiles the TRI data each year and makes it available through several data access tools, including the TRI Explorer and Envirofacts.
Questions about how TRI can help communities
- How should I use this Web site?
- What chemicals are covered in the TRI Program?
- What kinds of facilities are covered in the TRI Program?
- How do I find out about facilities or chemicals near my home?
- Does my state have a TRI program?
- What is the Public Data Release (PDR)?
- What are the benefits of TRI data?
- What is TRI Explorer?
- What is Envirofacts?
- What is the eFDR?
- Why would I use TRI Explorer or Envirofacts?
- How do I find information about EPA’s annual TRI National Training Conference?
How should I use this Web site?
The Communities section of the TRI Web site is designed to provide communities and the general public with basic information about the TRI program. This site also provides a description of and access to the various tools made available for communities to find out what TRI chemicals and covered facilities are in their area.
What chemicals are covered in the TRI Program?
The current TRI chemical list contains 581 individually listed chemicals and 30 chemical categories (including 3 delimited categories containing 58 chemicals).
What kinds of facilities are covered in the TRI Program?
The TRI data are collected from facilities in industries including manufacturing, metal and coal mining, electric utilities, commercial hazardous waste treatment, petroleum terminals, chemical distributors, and solvent recovery services. A list of the TRI-covered North American Industry Classification System codes is available on the TRI Web site.
How do I find out about facilities or chemicals near my home?
To find more information on TRI covered facilities and chemicals near your home, please use TRI Explorer. Simply enter your zip code for a list of facilities and chemicals in your area. You may also review the information available at the What is happening in my neighborhood? section of this Web site.
Does my state have a TRI program?
EPCRA Section 313 requires TRI facilities to submit reports to both EPA and their State. Many States have their own State TRI programs.
What is the Public Data Release (PDR)?
Each spring, EPA releases information to the public on annual toxic chemical releases and other waste management activities that have been submitted to the Agency as required by section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). Data for a particular year are submitted to EPA within six months of the end of that Reporting Year and then analyzed and released to the public within 8-10 months after being submitted to EPA. The Public Data Releases (PDR) includes a PDR Brochure which provides a quick overview of the annual TRI data and a PDR eReport which provides additional information on data trends. The eReport includes a "Summary of Key Findings" and tables and charts with data sorted and ranked by state, industry, chemical and other select categories.
What are the benefits of TRI data?
TRI provides the public with unprecedented access to information about toxic chemical releases and other waste management activities on a local, state, regional, and national level. TRI data help the public, government officials, and industry in the following ways:
- to identify potential concerns and gain a better understanding of potential risks
- to identify priorities and opportunities to work with industry and government to reduce toxic chemical disposal or other releases and potential risks associated with them
- to establish reduction targets and measure progress toward those targets.
TRI data are widely used across EPA programs. For example, the National Partnership for Environmental Priorities, an element of the Resource Conservation Challenge (RCC), uses TRI data to identify facilities that may present pollution prevention opportunities. EPA also uses TRI data in the Risk Screening Environmental Indicator (RSEI) tool, which provides users with additional understanding of chronic human health issues and potential exposures associated with TRI chemicals. Other EPA programs and tools that utilize TRI data may be searched by visiting EPA's Web site or from EPA's publication, How are the Toxics Release Inventory Data Used?
What is TRI Explorer?
TRI Explorer is a database tool that provides access to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) to help communities identify facilities and chemical releases or other waste management activities that warrant further study and analysis. Combined with hazard and exposure information, TRI Explorer can be a valuable tool for identifying potential chemical hazards in communities.
What is Envirofacts?
Envirofacts provides an easy point of Internet access to select U.S. EPA environmental data. This Web site provides access to several EPA databases that contain information about environmental activities that may affect air, water, and land anywhere in the United States. With Envirofacts, users can learn more about these environmental activities in their area or generate maps of environmental information.
Information in Envirofacts is accessible in a variety of ways from the TRI homepage. We suggest that users unfamiliar with Envirofacts begin with Quick Start. This feature allows the user to retrieve a sampling of information pertaining to an area by entering a specific zip code, city and state, or county and state. If users want more in-depth information about a particular subject area, they may select from a list of available topics, which includes waste, water, toxics, air, radiation, land, other, and maps. Experienced users, however, may be interested in the Advanced Capabilities option. This option allows users to go directly to the Queries, Maps, or Reports feature that interests them.
What is the eFDR?
The Electronic Facility Data Release (eFDR) is an annual early facility-level release of the TRI data. These data are typically released a few months prior to the annual TRI Public Data Release (PDR) and are available through Envirofacts. Only local level data, one facility at a time can be accessed through the eFDR. National, aggregate data are released a few months later as part of the PDR. Once the TRI data are made available in the annual PDR, the eFDR data are no longer made available.
Why would I use TRI Explorer or Envirofacts?
TRI Explorer allows users to create custom data searches of TRI data. These searches can then be exported to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Users can find TRI data for their zip code, county, and state. National-level data are also easily queried through TRI Explorer.
With Envirofacts, users can determine which facilities in designated areas have reported toxic releases, including air emissions, surface water discharges, releases to land, underground injections, and transfers to off-site locations. Envirofacts allows the user to query and view all fields for each TRI Form R submitted by a facility.
Why would I use TRI Explorer or Envirofacts?
Envirofacts is used to provide basic descriptive information about facilities or sources of pollutants, however, more advanced queries that provide pollutant or emissions levels or quantities of waste require an in depth understanding of database design and function.
TRI explorer is primarily used to identify facilities and chemical disposal or other release patterns in your community that have reported to TRI. However, this TRI data only reflects disposal quantities, releases and other waste management options for chemicals, and not exposures of the public to those chemicals. TRI data alone is not sufficient to determine exposure or to calculate potential adverse effects on human health and the environment.