How do toxic chemical reporting programs in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Eugene, Oregon, go beyond the TRI?

“Materials accounting data” collected by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJ DEP) provides a comprehensive inventory of toxic chemical inputs and outputs at industrial manufacturing plants and other facilities required to report to the TRI. This program imposes lower reporting thresholds than those of the TRI. All qualifying TRI facilities must provide materials accounting data on all TRI chemicals that are manufactured, processed, or otherwise used in excess of 10,000 pounds per year. The EPA’s lower thresholds for PBT chemicals also apply to materials accounting data reported to NJ DEP.

New Jersey’s expanded community right-to-know program was established under the state’s 1984 Worker and Community Right to Know Act (see http://www.state.nj.us/health/eoh/rtkweb/rtkact.pdf). It enables the public to obtain more detailed information than is available under the TRI program, including the quantity of toxic chemicals in a given year that are:

• Used by the facility.
• Transported into and out of the facility.
• Incorporated into products shipped out by the facility.

These represent some of the most harmful sources of toxic chemical exposure from industrial plants.

Because a chemical’s inputs into a plant as raw material should be equal to its outputs as waste or in products, materials accounting data allows the public to calculate a “materials balance” on the chemicals used by a facility. With this information, it is possible to assess the efficiency with which chemical inputs are being used and identify opportunities to reduce those inputs per unit of product manufactured.

For a table comparing materials accounting and TRI data elements, click here.

For a graphic comparing materials accounting and TRI data elements, click here.

For an analysis of materials accounting data reported by a hypothetical paint manufacturer, click here.

Massachusetts’ expanded community right-to-know program was established by the 1989 Toxics Use Reduction Act (TURA), which was enacted to “promote safer and cleaner production that enhances the economic viability of Massachusetts firms” (for background, see http://www.turi.org/turadata/WhatIsTURA/OverviewOfTURA.html).

The TURA program is slightly less comprehensive than New Jersey’s materials accounting data program, but Massachusetts does collect -- in addition to TRI data -- information on toxic chemical use and the quantity of toxic chemicals “shipped in products” by facilities.

In November 1996, Eugene, Oregon, passed the first and only local ordinance in the US requiring the reporting of materials accounting data. The ordinance covers all industrial facilities that report to the TRI (except federal and state facilities) ­ as well as infectious waste incinerators ­ that have a total input of more than 2640 pounds of hazardous substances per year. For more information, see http://www.ci.eugene.or.us/Firedept/Toxics/toxicsb.htm.