A decade ago, Dow announced an aggressive, voluntary set of Environment, Health & Safety Goals for 2005 that includes a target to reduce emissions of dioxins to air and water by 90 percent by the year 2005. The initial focus of the emissions reduction program was to determine the sources of dioxins, and establish the 1995 baseline. This involved a sampling and analytical program at sites around the world for the major emission points, which were primarily incinerator stacks and surface water outfalls.
Dow has been publicly reporting emissions of dioxins since 1998. To date, we have spent more than $400 million on improvements to our processes and treatment technologies to reduce both the generation and emission of dioxins. Since 1995, our emissions have been reduced 80 percent.
Check Our Progress
For Dow’s global emissions reduction progress, please see the EH&S Goals update on this web site. Detailed progress is accessible for the Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta; Freeport, Texas; Midland, Michigan; and Plaquemine, Louisiana sites.
And in 2000, dioxins were added to both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), and Environment Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) emission reporting requirements. As a result, Dow submits emissions data for its sites in the U.S. that meet the reporting threshold, namely Freeport, Texas; Midland, Michigan; and Plaquemine, Louisiana. Dow submits emissions data for its Fort Saskatchewan site in Canada. These data are included on the EPA and Environment Canada Web sites respectively.
Disposal
Dow currently has no specific reduction goals for landfill disposal of dioxins. Dow does, however, report landfill disposal of dioxins in the TRI and NPRI sections of this web site.
