Waste Management by Federal Facilities in the 2015 TRI National Analysis
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The following pie chart shows the percentages of toxic chemicals managed by federal facilities by government organization in 2015.
- 96% of the TRI chemicals managed as production-related waste at federal facilities was reported by: the Tennessee Valley Authority (51%), the Department of Defense (38%), and the Department of the Treasury (8%).
- All other government organizations comprised 4% of the production-related waste managed.
The types of waste reported by federal facilities vary by the type of operation. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a government-owned electric utility that provides power to southeastern states. Out of the 18 TVA facilities that reported to TRI for 2015, virtually all of the production-related waste comes from the fossil fuel plants that report in the Fossil Fuel Electric Power Generation sector. Similarly, out of 7 Department of the Treasury facilities reporting to TRI, most are mints for manufacturing currency and, accordingly, report in the Metal Stamping and Commerical Printing NAICS sector classification.
Source Reduction at Federal Facilities:
Since federal facilities are subject to TRI reporting regardless of their industry sector classification, their operations are diverse and few focus on manufacturing processes. Due to their unique functions, some federal facilities may face challenges in implementing source reduction strategies to reduce chemical waste. For the 2015 reporting year, 21 federal facilities (5%) reported implementing source reduction activities.
Facilities that do not implement source reduction activities may elect to indicate the types of barriers to source reduction they encountered. For federal facilities, most of the facilities that indicate barriers to implementing source reduction are national security or correctional institutions that report on lead or copper. For example, several facilities in the National Security sector indicated that they reported on lead because it is contained in the ammunition used on site and they have not been able to identify ammunition that does not contain lead. However, other federal facilities have been able to implement some source reduction activities. To find examples of federal facilities’ source reduction activities, search TRI's Pollution Prevention Search Tool and select industry sectors, such as National Security, Correctional Institutions, or Police Protection.
This page was published in January 2017 and uses the 2015 TRI National Analysis dataset made public in TRI Explorer in October 2016.