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Fact Sheet
TOXNET's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), a resource of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is a set of publicly available databases containing information on releases of specific toxic chemicals and their management as waste, as reported annually by U.S. industrial and federal facilities. This inventory was established under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA). TRI's data, beginning with the 1987 reporting year, covers air, water, land, and underground injection releases, as well as transfers to waste sites. In agreement with the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990, source reduction and recycling data is also included in TRI.

The Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program (TEHIP) in the Division of Specialized Information Services (SIS) of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) provides access to TRI as part of its TOXNET® (TOXicology Data NETwork) databases, which cover toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health and related areas.

TOXNET TRI Access/Searching

TRI is accessible via TOXNET at http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov or at http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?TRI.

Users can check one or more boxes to select the year(s) to search. A "Select all" option allows all years to be searched simultaneously. TOXNET's TRI can be searched by chemical or other substance name, chemical name fragment, or Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number (CAS/RN). Facility or parent company name, state, city, county, or zip code are also searchable.

Search results can be limited to releases greater than a specified number of pounds, and individual releases can be added together to display a total amount. Search results can be viewed, printed or downloaded. Search results are displayed in relevancy ranked order, but may also be sorted by substance name, facility name, city or state.

There were two changes to reporting requirements for the 2006 data. Facilities were required to submit appropriate North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes rather than the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes previously used. To do trends analysis, EPA assigned NAICS codes to prior years’ data, so now both SIC codes and NAICS codes are searchable on TOXNET. EPA also expanded Form A eligibility to include PBT chemicals in 2006.

TRI can also be searched and/or displayed using TOXMAP (http://toxmap.nlm.nih.gov), a Geographic Information System (GIS) from the National Library of Medicine that uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore the data.

Further Information

For detailed information about TRI or TOXNET, contact:

TRI Representative
Specialized Information Services
National Library of Medicine
Two Democracy Plaza, Suite 510
6707 Democracy Boulevard, MSC 5467
Bethesda, MD 20892-5467
FAX: (301) 480-3537
Telephone: (301) 496-1131
e-mail: tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov
URL: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov

For general information on the Library's computerized information services, including TRI, contact:

Customer Service
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, MD 20894
Telephone: 1-888-FINDNLM (1-888-346-3656)
e-mail: custserv@nlm.nih.gov

A complete list of NLM Fact Sheets is available at:
(alphabetical list) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsheets.html
(subject list): http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/factsheets/factsubj.html

Or write to:

FACT SHEETS
Office of Communications and Public Liaison
National Library of Medicine
8600 Rockville Pike
Bethesda, Maryland 20894

Phone: (301) 496-6308
Fax: (301) 496-4450
email: publicinfo@nlm.nih.gov

Last reviewed: 17 April 2008
Last updated: 17 April 2008
First published: 08 August 2005
Metadata| Permanence level: Permanent: Stable Content
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