U.S. facilities in various industries are required each year to report how much toxic chemicals they release into the environment and how much they recycle or render into less harmful forms. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) collects this data in its Toxics Release Inventory, a database that was launched in 1986 following the disastrous Bhopal, India chemical spill of 1984. The EPA released its 2012 data late last year, and it is available for download in CSV and other formats.
Photo: Flickr user Mike Hiatt