2013 TRI National Analysis: Chemicals of Special Concern
Section 6: Chemicals of Special Concern
Some chemicals on the TRI list are of special concern because they are highly toxic, persistent in the environment, and accumulate in tissue, or because they may cause a health effect of special concern. Here we take a closer look at some of those chemicals.
Some TRI chemicals and chemical categories have been designated as persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) chemicals. PBT chemicals are of particular concern not only because they are toxic, but also because they remain in the environment for long periods of time, and they tend to build up, or bioaccumulate, in the tissue of organisms. PBT chemicals have lower reporting thresholds than other TRI chemicals. In TRI there are 16 PBT chemicals and 4 PBT chemical compound categories; see TRI’s PBT webpage for the full list. In this section we look more closely at: lead and lead compounds; mercury and mercury compounds; and dioxin and dioxin-like compounds.
There are also about 180 chemicals in TRI that are known or suspected carcinogens, which EPA refers to as Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) carcinogens. These chemicals also have different reporting requirements. A full list of these chemicals can be found on the TRI chemicals webpage. In this section we examine how the volume of OSHA carcinogens released to air have changed over time.
This page was published in January 2015 and uses the 2013 TRI National Analysis dataset made public in TRI Explorer in October 2014.