As part of its commitment to the health and safety of people and the environment, Dow continues to reduce its emissions of dioxins and furans. This involves a sampling and analytical program and technology development at sites around the world for the remaining emission points.
Dow's efforts to reduce dioxin emissions date back to the early 1980s, and the company 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 to air and water have been reduced 80 percent.
Check Our Progress
The chart above illustrates Dow's progress since 1995 in reducing emissions of dioxin to air and water.
Dow has reported total dioxin air and water emissions of less than eight grams globally for the last eight years. Reduction efforts continue, and progress continues to be made
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. These data are included on the EPA web site.
Due to the shutdown of certain operations the Fort Saskatchewan site no longer meets threshold levels and has discontinued the reporting of dioxins and dioxin-like components.