The government has calculated the total amounts of specified chemical substances released or transferred from 36,491 business operators nationwide during the one-year period specified by FY 2010 on the basis of the reports from the companies that are required to make notifications. The released amounts were 183,000 tons and the transfer amounts stood at 198,000 tons, and the total of the released and transferred amounts was 381,000 tons.

The released amounts of continuously confirmed substances* totaled 164,000 tons, exhibiting a decrease of 5.6% from the previous fiscal year.

* Continuously confirmed substances: 276 chemical substances designated as the subject of notification both previous and subsequent to the review of the substances covered by the Act.

The Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) system was instituted pursuant to the Chemical Substances Management Act promulgated in July 1999.

Under the PRTR system, every company handling any of the Class I Designated Chemical Substances (that are recognized to continuously exist in the environment of a considerably wide area and to pose a risk of being injurious to human health or a risk of impeding the inhabitation or growth of animals and plants) is required to notify the government of the amount of such chemical substances released to the environment and the amount transferred as waste. The government must compile the notified date and publish the compiled data, along with estimates of release amounts other than those notified.

In accordance with the revision by cabinet order in November 2008, the PRTR system under the Chemical Substances Management Act was amended to be applicable, from the present notification (confirmed in FY 2010), to 462 substances rather than 354 previously stipulated substances. It was also changed to cover the medical industry, and the number of industries managed under the Act increased to 24.

Jointly with MOE, METI totaled the above released amounts, estimated and calculated the released amounts other than those notified, and compiled the results.

The compiled data and the data for individual business operators are available on the METI website as of today (March 13).

Documents pertinent to the PRTR data as calculated above are available on the following websites:

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry

http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/chemical_management/law/index.html

Ministry of the Environment

http://www.env.go.jp/chemi/prtr/risk0.html

[Reference] List of posted materials

• Press release (METI) (this document), Appendix 1 (PDF:862KB) and Appendix 2 (PDF:714KB)* (both in Japanese)
  * Summary of notification situations from companies, total of release and transfer amounts by industry and by prefecture, estimated release amounts other than those notified etc. as well as the data comparing the data of this fiscal year with the data until the previous fiscal year.
•  Data sheets
  4,560 data sheets compiled pursuant to the "Ministerial Ordinance for Defining the Methods, etc. of Aggregating Notified Data Concerning the Released Quantity, etc. of Class I Designated Chemical Substances" (issued jointly by METI and MOE), including data broken down by chemical substance, by prefecture, by industry (46 industries), and size of business operators (based on the number of employees).
  The above data sheets are provided in pdf or csv formatted files on the website.
• Outline of the PRTR data:
  Summary of notification situations from companies, total of notified release/transfer amounts broken down by industry and prefecture and estimates of release amounts other than those notified
• Outline of the Method of Estimating the Release Amounts Other Than Those Notified under the PRTR System
  Reference material describing the method used for estimating release amounts other than those notified and the data used for the estimations
•  Individual business operator data
  Business-operator-based PRTR data for FY 2010 and the preceding years (FY 2001-2009

The business operator-based PRTR data are disclosed by conventional methods where disclosure is made upon request, in addition to its release on the website (Note that the data disclosed upon request is the same as the data on the website)

• An administrative fee will be charged for the request. For details, refer to the website below:
  http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/chemical_management/law/prtr/7.html

March 13, 2012

Chemical Management Policy Division, Manufacturing Industries Bureau