Chemical companies in the U.S. use and produce over 75,000 synthetic chemicals today. Approximately 3,000 chemicals are produced in amounts of over one million pounds per year. The public receives information about the releases to the air, land, and water on just over 600 chemicals. This information is made available to the public on-line in the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) database created by the Community Right to Know Act.
Although TRI is the best information available to the public about toxic threats, it is drastically incomplete. The public is left in the dark about how toxic chemicals are transported through communities, used in the workplace and put in products we buy. And because the most basic health tests have not been done on many of the mass-produced toxic chemicals, just knowing toxic releases is only a small part of the toxic picture.
The EPA is considering expanding the public reporting to fill in some of the missing information and better inform communities about toxic chemical threats, as well as expanding the amount of basic testing done on chemicals about which we have little or no information on health effects.
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