Pollutants in Your Neighbourhood?

Do you want to know how much pollution is going into your neighbourhood from a factory in your community? Do you ever wonder how much industrialized contamination is entering the river that you swim in? Do you live near a hazardous-waste landfill or incinerator and want to know how much and what kinds of chemicals are being shipped there? Do you want to know what kinds of contaminants are being emitted from the factory that you work in? Environment Canada's National Pollutant Release Inventory or NPRI, can provide the answers to these questions and more.

The NPRI is the only nationwide, publicly accessible inventory of releases and transfers of pollutants to air, water and land in Canada. Legislated under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the inventory requires industry to report annually on its releases of 245 toxic and non-toxic pollutants. This requirement, in place since 1992, has led to some significant environmental improvements.

Who Has to Report and What's Reported

Companies owned or operated in Canada must report to the NPRI each year if they employ more than 10 full-time employees and manufacture, process or otherwise use more than 10 tonnes of substances on the inventory list. Thresholds are lower for microcontaminants such as dioxins and furans.

Each year more substances are added to the NPRI, 73 in 1999 alone. For the 2002 reporting year, the program will be expanded further to include information on releases of precursors of ground-level ozone and components of smog such as nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and carbon monoxide.

In addition to the increases in substances reported, the number of facilities that report continues to increase. The 1999 report included pollutant releases from 2 190 facilities. It's expected that more than 7 000 facilities will report by 2005.

The 1999 report, released in July 2001, notes that more pollutants are being recycled and used for energy recovery than are being released into the air, land and water. Companies that reported to the NPRI in 1999 diverted more than one million tonnes of NPRI substances for recycling.

Encouraging Pollution Prevention

The introduction of mandatory reporting on pollution prevention activities in 1998 has helped Environment Canada track progress on pollution prevention, and has given companies an additional means of demonstrating them to the public.

By reporting more often and in such a public fashion, NPRI has encouraged industry to improve the accuracy of reports on releases, and to take voluntary steps to reduce releases to the environment.

A Cooperative Effort

Environment Canada works continual with stakeholders to improve the program. A multi-stakeholder working group on NPRI substances has been established to consult on proposed changes to the list and on other related matters such as reporting procedures and compliance promotion. This approach has resulted in a cooperative relationship with stakeholders, which has helped to improve the quality of data.

How You Can Use The Inventory's Data

The NPRI features an on-line query site to access local environmental information by postal code. The database, which is updated periodically, can also be searched by company, substance or city. A comprehensive Citizens' Guide to the NPRI developed by the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy (see related links) will help you:

• understand what information you can find by using the inventory
• learn how to access the inventory and use its data
• interpret the significance of the data you obtain through the NPRI
• understand what you can achieve by giving examples of how others have used the inventory