Facilities report the quantities of toxic chemicals they recycle, combust for energy recovery, treat for destruction, and release on- and off-site. This figure shows the trend in these quantities, collectively referred to as the production-related waste managed.

From 2005 to 2015:

• Production-related waste managed increased by 952 million pounds (4%).
• Disposal and other releases decreased by 1.1 billion pounds (-25%).
• Treatment decreased by 796 million pounds (-9%).
• Energy recovery decreased by 126 million pounds (-4%).
• Recycling increased by almost 3 billion pounds (34%), a trend mostly driven by one facility reporting over 3.4 billion pounds of cumene recycled in 2014 and in 2015 [Click to view facility details in the Pollution Prevention (P2) Tool].
• The number of facilities that report to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) Program declined by 10% since 2005, although the count has remained steady at about 21,800 facilities since 2010.
• Since 2009, production-related waste managed has generally been increasing as the U.S. economy has improved.

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This page was published in January 2017 and uses the 2015 TRI National Analysis dataset made public in TRI Explorer in October 2016.

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