Largest Toxic Chemical Releases in the U.S.

Every year, thousands of U.S. industrial facilities report to EPA how much of each toxic chemical they release into the environment. The Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) makes this data public. The facilities below are the largest reporters — the ones moving the most chemical mass through air emissions, water discharges, and land disposal combined.

Scale matters for context: a single large mine can report more pounds than entire states' worth of chemical plants. That's partly because mining operations handle rock and ore at enormous volumes, and TRI counts managed waste (like tailings ponds) alongside emissions to air and water. A facility releasing millions of pounds of relatively low-toxicity mining waste is a different situation than one releasing thousands of pounds of a potent carcinogen — but both show up in TRI.