EPA Takes Steps to Require Waste Incinerators to Report Toxic Output

VICTORY! On 12/20/2024, EPA grant­ed our peti­tion filed in 2023 by Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work and Pub­lic Employ­ees for Envi­ron­men­tal Respon­si­bil­i­ty to require waste incin­er­a­tors to start annu­al­ly report­ing their tox­ic chem­i­cals releas­es to the agen­cy’s Tox­i­cs Release Inven­to­ry (TRI) data­base. This includes emis­sions to the air, water, and land and is expect­ed to cov­er about 60 facil­i­ties: main­ly trash incin­er­a­tors, but also a por­tion of the nation’s med­ical waste incin­er­a­tors, com­mer­cial and indus­tri­al incin­er­a­tors, and waste incin­er­a­tors using pyrol­y­sis or gasi­fi­ca­tion, where incin­er­a­tion is the main aspect of the facil­i­ty’s busi­ness. Report­ing will include the amounts of tox­ic chem­i­cals in their ash, and where that ash goes. As of late Decem­ber 2024, there are now 63 oper­at­ing trash incin­er­a­tors and a hand­ful of med­ical waste and pyrol­y­sis and gasi­fi­ca­tion waste incin­er­a­tors that this could apply to. Read the EPA response and our press release for more, and see our page on the TRI peti­tion for back­ground and a list of the 313 groups sup­port­ing our efforts.