--- title: "EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)" description: >- Facility-by-chemical annual reports of toxic chemical releases and waste management from the U.S. EPA, with the no-key bulk CSV and Envirofacts REST recipes and the gotchas that bite pipelines. sidebar: label: EPA TRI order: 22 tags: [pollution, environmental, esg, free, no-api-key, panel-data, data:epa-tri] verified: level: fetched date: 2026-06-09 with: live no-key pulls of the EPA TRI bulk CSV (mv_tri_basic_download/2022_US) and Envirofacts tri_facility JSON (data.epa.gov) access: free --- The **Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)** is the U.S. EPA's annual program tracking releases and other waste management of listed toxic chemicals. Facilities above size and chemical-throughput thresholds in covered industry sectors must report under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). Each record is at the facility x chemical x year level: on-site and off-site releases (to air, water, land), plus recycling, energy recovery, and treatment quantities. Reporting began for 1987. Used in, for example, [Duchin, Gao & Xu](/wiki/papers/jf/2025/duchin-sustainability-greenwashing-evidence-asset-2025/) for plant-chemical-level toxic emissions (total pollution, pollution intensity, abatement), 1,056,361 plant-chemical-year observations, 2000-2020. - **Cost:** free, public. - **API key:** none required. - **Coverage:** facility x chemical x year, reporting years from 1987 to the most recent processed year, for covered industry sectors and listed chemicals. - **Home:** ## Access All paths below need no key. The bulk path gives you a full year of national data in one file; the Envirofacts REST service lets you slice individual TRI tables. The TRI Basic Data Files (annual CSV/ZIP) are also published on the EPA website if you prefer to download by hand. ### Option 1: bulk CSV (one year, national) A materialized download view returns a full year of US data as a single CSV: ```bash # (a) Bulk: one year, national, as CSV (no key) curl -sL -o tri_2022_US.csv \ "https://data.epa.gov/efservice/downloads/tri/mv_tri_basic_download/2022_US/csv" ``` The 2022 US file is roughly 25 MB. Load it as strings first, then cast the columns you need: ```python import pandas as pd df = pd.read_csv( "tri_2022_US.csv", dtype=str, # read everything as str first; cast after schema alignment low_memory=False, ) # Cast key fields after inspecting column names and the unit column df["total_releases"] = pd.to_numeric(df["TOTAL RELEASES"], errors="coerce") ``` Inspect the header before casting; column names and the unit column matter (see Gotchas). ### Option 2: Envirofacts REST service The Envirofacts service exposes TRI tables directly. The URL grammar is: ``` https://data.epa.gov/efservice////rows/:/ ``` `` can be `JSON` or `CSV`. The `rows/:` window is required for large tables. ```bash # (b) Envirofacts REST: a windowed slice of a TRI table as JSON (no key) curl -sL "https://data.epa.gov/efservice/tri_facility/state_abbr/CA/rows/0:1/JSON" ``` This returns facility records with fields such as `tri_facility_id`, `facility_name`, `street_address`, `city_name`, `county_name`, `state_county_fips_code`, `state_abbr`, `zip_code`, `region`, `fac_closed_ind`, and `frs_id`. Page through a table with successive windows (`rows/0:9999`, `rows/10000:19999`, and so on). ## Gotchas (the ones that bite pipelines) - **Self-reported estimates, not measured emissions.** TRI quantities are estimates; estimation methods vary by facility, and reported values can be revised and back-filed in later releases. Pin the release year you pulled. - **Chemical list and thresholds change across years.** A chemical added in a given year appears to jump from zero. That is a reporting-scope change, not a real increase. Check whether a chemical was reportable in the years you compare. - **Covered sectors have expanded over time.** Do not read a sector first appearing in the data as a real onset of pollution; it can be a coverage change. - **Units: pounds, except PBT chemicals in grams.** Quantities are in pounds, except certain highly toxic persistent bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals (such as dioxin and dioxin-like compounds), which are reported in grams. Never sum the raw quantity column across chemicals without unit-aligning first; do not sum pounds and grams. - **Facility identity drifts.** TRI Facility ID, FRS ID, and parent-company name do not map one-to-one, and ownership changes across years break a naive facility panel. This matters for any buyer/seller or plant-tracking analysis (as in the citing paper); link facilities deliberately across years. - **On-site vs. off-site, released vs. managed.** Do not conflate on-site versus off-site, or "released" versus "managed as waste". These are distinct columns with distinct meaning. - **Envirofacts needs the rows window.** The REST service requires the `rows/:` window for large tables, or the request times out. Page through with successive windows. ## Citation Cite the U.S. EPA, the Toxics Release Inventory, the reporting year(s), and the specific file or Envirofacts table used, with the EPA URL and the access date, for example: *U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), reporting year 2022, TRI Basic Data Download (mv_tri_basic_download/2022_US), retrieved from https://data.epa.gov/efservice/downloads/tri/mv_tri_basic_download/2022_US/csv, accessed YYYY-MM-DD.* Record the reporting year and the table or file so the pull is reproducible.