2000 Dioxin Data from Major Chlorine Producers and Users

Under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community-Right-to-know Act, facilities that manufacture, process, or otherwise use certain toxic materials are required to report amounts of emissions of these materials to air, water and land if they exceed established activity thresholds. Reported amounts are compiled in the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). The TRI also requires facilities to report their pollution-prevention and recycling data. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compiles TRI data each year, publishes an annual report, and makes the data available to the public via the Internet.

Dioxin is a category of compounds that was recently added to the TRI. Industries were required to report dioxin emissions, pollution-prevention, and recycling data for the first time for the year 2000.

This web site presents dioxin data submitted by major industrial producers and users of chlorine. Data on this website are representative of dioxin releases for greater than 90% of chlorine and greater than 100% of vinyl chloride US production and over 75% of other chemical uses of chlorine. It provides data on dioxin releases, treatment, disposal and transfer activities. Dioxin data, in numerical form, are reported in the links below using two types of units: (1) TEQ, denoting "Toxic Equivalent," a quantitative measure of the combined toxicity of a mixture of dioxin-like chemicals, and (2) TM-17, denoting "Total Mass of 17 different types of dioxin family compounds of concern."

The reason two types of units exist for dioxin reporting has to do with the fact that "dioxin," rather than denoting one chemical compound, denotes a family of compounds. Dioxin is always produced as a mixture of its family member compounds. Furthermore, the toxicities of individual family member compounds vary greatly. (Some dioxin family compounds are 10,000 times less toxic than the most toxic dioxin family compound.) The TEQ method was devised to impart a quantitative measure of the toxicity of a given dioxin mixture. In contrast, the TM-17 method simply adds the masses, in grams, of all constituent compounds in the mixture. Clearly, without knowing the TEQ measure of a given mass (in grams) of dioxin (and understanding that toxicities of individual dioxin compounds vary widely), one cannot know the toxicity of a particular reported amount.

Click here for Aggregated Data for Chlorine Chemistry Sector

Click here for individual facility data

Click here for TRI press release, Toxics Release Inventory Demonstrates Chlorine Industry Success in Managing Dioxin