Researchers Finger Top 100 Corporate
Polluters
Source: GreenBiz.com
AMHERST, Mass., May 15, 2006 - Researchers at the Political Economy
Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts has
released its annual Toxic 100, an updated list of the top corporate air
polluters.
"The Toxic 100 informs consumers and shareholders which large
corporations release the most toxic pollutants into our air," says James
K. Boyce, director of PERI's environment program. "We measure not just
how many pounds of pollutants are released, but which are the most toxic
and how many people are at risk. People have a right to know about toxic
hazards to which they are exposed. Legislators need to understand the
effects of pollution on their constituents."
The Toxic 100 index is based on air releases of hundreds of chemicals
from industrial facilities across the United States. The rankings take
into account not only the quantity of releases, but the relative
toxicity of chemicals, nearby populations, and factors such as
prevailing winds and height of smokestacks.
The Toxic 100 index identifies the top air polluters among corporations
that appear in the "Fortune 500," "Forbes 500," and "Standard & Poor's
500" lists of the country's largest firms. The Toxic 100's top five
companies are E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., US Steel, ConocoPhillips,
GE, and Eastman Kodak.
A new feature of the Web-based list is that readers can see the details
behind each company, such as individual facilities owned by the
corporation, specific chemicals they emit, their toxicities, and their
contributions to the company's overall Toxic Score.
The data on chemical releases come from the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The TRI is widely
cited in press accounts that identify the top polluters in various
localities. But reports based on these data alone have three
limitations:
- Raw TRI data are reported in total pounds of chemicals, without
taking into account differences in toxicity. Pound-for-pound, some
chemicals are up to ten million times more hazardous than others.
- TRI data do not calculate the numbers of people affected by toxic
releases--for example, the difference between facilities upwind from
densely-populated urban areas and those located far from population
centers.
- TRI data are reported on a facility-by-facility basis, without
combining plants owned by one corporation to get a picture of overall
corporate performance.
The Toxic 100 index tackles all three problems. It includes toxicity
weights and the number of people at risk using 2002 data-the most recent
available from the EPA's Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators
project. PERI researchers added up facility-by-facility data from the
EPA to get corporate rankings.
"In making this information available, we are building on the
achievements of the right-to-know movement," Boyce explains. "Our goal
is to engender public participation in environmental decision-making,
and to help residents translate the right to know into the right to
clean air."
A complete list of the Toxic 100 is available
online. |
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