National Pollutant Inventory

What is the National Pollutant Inventory?

The National Pollutant Inventory (NPI) is a publicly accessible database that provides the community, industry and government with information about the emissions of 93 substances to air, land and water in Australia.

The objective of the NPI is to provide information:

about emissions and transfers of specified substances, on a geographical basis, including those of a hazardous nature or involving significant impact;
that enhances and facilitates policy formulation and decision making for environmental planning and management;
about waste minimisation and cleaner production programmes in industry, government and the community and promotes and facilitates their implementation;
that is available and accessible to the public.

The NPI database is available online.

The NPI is implemented cooperatively by the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments. In Queensland the NPI is implemented by the department under the Environmental Protection Regulation 2008 (PDF)*.

What information can the NPI provide to the community?

the amounts and types of emissions in the local area and across Australia
details about facilities in the local area which are emitting pollutants
maps showing the location of reporting facilities and other significant features (towns, cities, roads, railways, waterbodies and rivers, parks and reserves)
comprehensive information about each of the 93 substances on the NPI
downloadable data for off-line analysis
links to similar inventories for other countries
links to further information about pollution and actions that individuals and communities can take to reduce pollution

The NPI helps everyone to keep an eye on pollution - it's your right to know.

Where does NPI data come from?

Industrial facilities that exceed reporting thresholds for one or more substances are required to calculate and report the annual emissions that result from their operations. The reported emission amounts are checked by the department and then published annually by the Commonwealth Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) through the NPI website.

Information about the emissions of substances from other sources is collected and collated by the department in Queensland and equivalent agencies in other States and Territories. These sources include motor vehicles, other transport, lawn mowing, surface coating (e.g. painting), controlled burns, bushfires and small facilities.

Industries as diverse as sugar milling, soft drink making, mining, hospitals and brick manufacturing report to the NPI.

A full list of industries can be found on the NPI web site.

Industrial facilities determine whether they are required to report by following the threshold calculations which are outlined in the NPI guide.

The Queensland Pollutant Emission Report Card

The Queensland Pollutant Emission Report Card 2009 (PDF, 600K)* presents information about trends in the amounts of pollutant emissions from large industrial facilities - information submitted annually to the National Pollutant Inventory (NPI). The trends are presented for individual substances and an overall trend based on a toxic equivalency potential (TEP) approach. The TEP approach is a tool for demonstrating 'at a glance' the pattern of industrial pollutant emissions.

Queensland Pollutant Emission Report Card 2008