• SEARCHING FOR A POLLUTER IN YOUR COMMUNITY
• SEARCHING FOR A POLLUTER BY COMPANY NAME
• SEARCHING FOR POLLUTERS IN A CITY
• SEARCHING FOR SCORECARD REPORTS BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA
• SEARCHING FOR CONSUMER PRODUCTS
• SEARCHING FOR A CHEMICAL
• SEARCHING FOR HEALTH EFFECTS
• SEARCHING FOR REGULATORY LISTS
• SEARCHING FOR A SPECIFIC FACILITY OR CHEMICAL NAME IN A LONG LIST

SEARCHING FOR A POLLUTER IN YOUR COMMUNITY
The easiest way to find out whether Scorecard contains a report for a polluting facility in your community is to use our Pollution Locator search engine. Search for a facility by company name or city and state.

You can quickly get lists of the top polluting facilities in your area by typing your zip code into Scorecard's Find Your Community feature and then selecting either "Who is Polluting Your Community?" in the Toxic Chemical Releases from Manufacturing Facilities section or "Who is Polluting Your Air?" in the Air Quality: Does Your Community Meet Clean Air Act Standards? section.

If a facility you are interested in is not listed on Scorecard, this means the state and federal data sources our system currently includes do not have the information required to profile that pollution source.

SEARCHING FOR A POLLUTER BY COMPANY NAME
You can search by company name using Scorecard's search engine. If you're not sure about a polluting facility's full name, you can search on just the part of its name that you remember. Scorecard returns a list of exact and close matches for you to select from, ordered alphabetically and by state. The list provides the names that manufacturing facilities use in their reports to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which may be different from how the plant is known locally.

Scorecard currently does not allow you to restrict your search by company name to a specific city or state. It also does not support searching by parent company name for all facilities belonging to a company.

SEARCHING FOR POLLUTERS IN A CITY
You can get a list of companies within a city using Scorecard's search engine. Just type in the city you are interested in and select the state it is located in. Scorecard returns an alphabetical list of polluters with reports in that city.

If you are searching for facilities in a city, but the text-based search engine turns-up nothing, please double-check to make sure you have the city name correct. Often times neighborhood names in larger cities are mistaken for individual cities. For example, Westwood, California is actually a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California and not a city. Similarly, there is a Queens County, New York and a Borough of Queens in New York City, but Queens itself is not a city.

SEARCHING FOR SCORECARD REPORTS BY GEOGRAPHIC AREA
You can search for Scorecard's reports on specific geographic areas (zip code, county, or state) by using Scorecard's search engine. If Scorecard doesn't have a report on your zip code, it lets you know if the zip code is within a county with a report, or if there are nearby zip codes that have reports.

Scorecard does not generate reports on cities, because it is very difficult to combine environmental data reliably for this unit of political organization.

SEARCHING FOR CONSUMER PRODUCTS
Scorecard does not currently support searches by consumer product name. However, there are two ways to gain information about the chemicals in consumer products.

If you have a product you are concerned about, look at its label and then search by chemical name in Scorecard' About the Chemicals section.

If you are concerned about a chemical and want to know which products it may be in, go to the About the Chemicals section and find the chemical you are interested in. Scorecard's chemical profiles contain a "Chemical Use Profile" section that provides this information if it is available. Scorecard currently focuses on pesticides and consumer products, building materials or furnishings that contribute to indoor air pollution, so it may not include the consumer product category you are interested in. (See Scorecard's Source for Data on Chemicals in Consumer Products).

Scorecard is not a good place to search for information about over-the-counter or prescription drugs.

SEARCHING FOR A CHEMICAL
If you want to find information about a chemical, use Scorecard's search engine. Searching by Chemical Abstract Services (CAS) number is much quicker than by name. You need to know the exact CAS number, because Scorecard does not provide results "similar" or "close" to the CAS number entered.

If you don't know the CAS number, search by name. The search is a little slower because Scorecard looks over 90,000 chemical synonyms, and returns a list of exact and close matches for you to select from. If you're not sure about a chemical's entire name, you can search on just the part of its name that you remember.

Scorecard contains reports on 6,800 chemicals, but there are over 70,000 chemicals in commercial use. If you search by CAS number and can't find a chemical report, it's probably not in Scorecard. The system includes most chemicals used in high-volume or subject to various regulatory programs, so it is safe to assume there is very little known about the environmental health impacts of a chemical if you can't find it in Scorecard. Note that the system does not provide comprehensive coverage of either prescription or over-the-counter drugs, so do not expect to find much information about therapeutic products here.

SEARCHING FOR HEALTH EFFECTS
Scorecard focuses on twelve general categories of health effects chemicals can cause, but it does not contain information linking chemicals to specific diseases. For example, you cannot search Scorecard for chemicals known to cause leukemia, but you can search for chemicals that cause cancer. See Health Effects for the general categories Scorecard covers and access to lists of chemicals that are recognized or suspected of causing different effects.

SEARCHING FOR REGULATORY LISTS
See Scorecard's Regulatory Controls section for the lists Scorecard currently includes. Most major federal environmental laws addressing toxics are included, as well as a selection of international lists. Currently, Scorecard only contains state regulatory lists for California. Other state lists may be added in the future, if they are available in digital format.

SEARCHING FOR A SPECIFIC FACILITY OR CHEMICAL NAME IN A LONG LIST
Because of the enormous amount of information included in Scorecard, sometimes the lists of ranked facilities or chemical names can be overwhelming. If you are looking for specifics in a long list and want to avoid slowly scrolling through it, remember that you can use your browser's own text search tool, usually called "find" in the "edit" menu.