Today has been a day of back-to-back presentations from UN agencies and participating countries. The presentations have been about the progress the agencies have made setting up chemical inventories. Here's the day by numbers:
34 - The average number of months it took participating countries to implement the project. This included the time it took people from industry, the public and the government to decide the priority chemicals, who would report and how the data would be disseminated.
90 - The percentage of pollution that is produced in urban areas in the Ukraine. They've been able to use their program to identify hot spots in their country.
43 - The number of facilities that are responsible for 80% of the pollution in Kazakhstan.
100 - The number of chemicals the Cambodian government has prioritized tracking.
It was fascinating to hear about each country's project, their process and their challenges. I was proud to learn that the United States EPA has provided technical support to the UN and the countries who are launching these exciting projects. I'm leaving the conference with a lot of new friends and fresh ideas how to use TRI data back home! More on my thoughts on that topic later this week.
