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According to the EPA report, the term “production-related wastes managed” means the quantity of toxic chemicals in total waste that is recycled, burned for energy recovery, treated, or disposed of or otherwise released. In 2012, the total was 23.52 billion pounds, of which 19.88 billion pounds were recycled, burned for energy recovery or treated while the remainder was disposed of or released. One confusing aspect of how these wastes are counted is that some are counted more than once because they are managed more than once. For example, when a waste is transferred from one TRI facility to another, such as for disposal, that waste would be counted once be each facility. Waste that is simply released or disposed of is only counted once.
Overall, the good news is that the number of facilities reporting to TRI has dropped 15% from 2003 to 2012 and 2% from 2011 to 2012. Also hopeful is that total disposal or releases of TRI chemicals have decreased 19% from 2003 to 2012, and 12% from 2011 to 2012, most of which were attributed to decreases in metal-mining industry land disposal.
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The greatest long-term (2003-2012) decreases were in air emissions, which were down 54% (850 million pounds), something the report attributes in large part to the lower emissions from electric utilities that have both installed controls at coal-fired plants or switched from coal to other fuels. In general, most trends are the result of many different factors such as production process changes, revamped management practices, raw material composition changes, and new control technologies.
As noted above, metal mining industry releases have had a huge impact, with industry being responsible for an increase of 97% of the total 696 million pounds of on-site land disposal reported from 2009 to 2011 and 88% of the decrease of 483 million pounds from 2011-2012. The report notes that the metal-mining industry’s huge waste volumes are in the form of waste rock and that changes in waste rock composition can have equally huge impacts on reporting due to a regulatory exemption based on chemical composition regardless of waste rock quantity.
The 2012 reporting year was also the first to require emissions data on hydrogen sulfide, after the EPA finally lifted an Administrative Stay issued in 1994 that deferred reporting while the agency completed further evaluations. In total, 484 facilities submitted hydrogen sulfide data with the majority being from three industries: Petroleum (142); Chemical (115); and Paper (114). These three industries accounted for 89% of the 20.3 million pounds of hydrogen sulfide air emissions reported. On the up side, 17 of the facilities also reported implementing new pollution controls for the chemical including programs for monitoring potential leaks and spills and process modifications.
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Another area of special interest is that of persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals including mercury and mercury compounds, lead and lead compounds, and dioxin and dioxin-like compounds. These are the big three when it comes to toxicity, longevity and the ability build-up in organisms over time.
Lead accounted for 98% of total disposal/releases of PBTs in 2012. Although lead releases fluctuated up and down from 2003 to 2012, the number rose 102% from 2009 to 2011 and then fell 22% in 2012, thanks to changes in metal-mining on-site land disposal and other industry releases.
Mercury air emissions have been falling for the past decade, dropping 42% from 2003 to 2012 with a 10% drop from 2011 to 2012, in large part the result of electric utility switching to fuels other than coal.
Releases and disposal of dioxin and dioxin-like compounds, which are tallied in grams, decreased 57% from 2003 to 2012, but increased 8% from 2011 to 2012, although the report notes the recent spike was largely due to data reported by just one metals manufacturer.