Since 1987, the US Environmental Protection Agency has required industrial facilities to report to the agency’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) on how much toxic waste they generate and release to the environment. By making this information publicly available, the TRI program gave communities, for the first time, the ability to analyze problems associated with toxic wastes generated at local plants. But wastes are not always the source of a plant’s biggest impacts on the environment and public health. Potentially harmful exposures can also result from the use of toxic chemicals inside the plant, from their transport into and out of the plant as raw materials or in products, and from the use or disposal of products that contain toxic chemicals.

In Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Eugene, Oregon, industrial facilities are required to report not only on the amounts of waste they generate and release to the environment, but also on the amounts that are used overall, that are transported into and out of the plant, and that wind up in consumer and industrial products made at the plant. As a result, communities located near these facilities have the ability to monitor plant operations and ensure that maximum efforts are being made to protect the environment and public health.

This webpage addresses the following questions:

1. What does the US EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) program disclose -- and not disclose -- to the public about industrial uses of toxic chemicals?
   
   
2. How can I find TRI data on the Internet?
   
   
3. How do toxic chemical reporting programs in New Jersey and Massachusetts go beyond the TRI?
   
   
4. How can I access information about these expanded community right-to-know programs on the Internet?
   
   
5. How can an expanded community right-to-know program better protect the public from accidental releases of toxic chemicals from industrial facilities?
   
   
6. Why does the public need to know more about toxic chemicals that are transported through the community?
   
   
7. Why does the public need to know more about toxic chemicals that are incorporated into products?
   
   
8. How can an expanded community right-to-know program help the public promote and track pollution prevention efforts at industrial plants?
   
   
9. Are expanded community right-to-know programs under consideration in other states?
   
   
10. Why should government make more information about toxic chemical use available to the public, given concerns about chemical facilities becoming terrorist targets?
    
    
11. INFORM’s Community Right-to-Know-More Resources

12. Organizations that provide right-to-know information
    
    
13. Organizations that promote right-to-know as a way to increase “inherent safety” by reducing risks from chemical accidents
    
    
14. Organizations that support expanded right-to-know as a way to promote pollution prevention, clean production, worker safety, and environmental justice
    
    
15. Other organizations working on pollution prevention and clean production