Tennessee ranks sixth highest in the nation for total releases of toxic chemicals per square mile, according to a new report from the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA finalized its Toxics Release Inventory Tuesday. The report covers calendar year 2016.
“The publicly available database shows that industrial facilities continue to reduce the releases of TRI chemicals through pollution reduction activities,” EPA wrote in a news release.
EPA officials touted a 58 percent reduction in air-released chemicals among reporting facilities since 2006.
The report also allows users to drill down to the local level. There are 12 reporting facilities in Knoxville, and 3 more in Knox County.
Within Knoxville, 351,400 pounds of waste was released or disposed of in 2016. Of that, 323,700 pounds went into the atmosphere.
Fifty-eight percent of the atmospheric release was styrene, which the EPA identifies as a carcinogen. The next largest segment, at 14 percent, was trichloroethylene, another carcinogen.
Yet according to the EPA, release or disposal makes up a small percentage – 1 percent – of the 23.7 million pounds of waste managed in Knoxville in 2016. The remaining 97 percent was recycled, 1 percent was recovered and 1 percent was treated.
The EPA says nationally, the rate of waste recycled, recovered or treated is 87 percent.
“For waste that is generated, the preferred management method is recycling, followed by energy recovery, treatment, and as a last resort, disposing of or otherwise releasing the waste,” the report reads.
It also lists the top five facilities in Knoxville by disposal and releases. Leisure Pools tops the list at 187,000 pounds, followed by Rohm & Haas Chemicals, Schick Manufacturing, Cemex Construction Materials and Gerdau.
The report also shows long term trends – including a reduction in on-site releases from 2004 to 2009, and a slow increase from 2013 to 2016.