Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory: 2020 data highlights

The National Pollutant Release Inventory’s (NPRI) data helps track pollution patterns and trends across Canada. Since 1993, it has collected data from facilities about pollutants they release to the air, water and land. The NPRI also collects data about the disposal and transfer of pollutants. Facilities that meet the reporting requirements must report each year.

2020 data at a glance

In 2020, 7,168 facilities reported to the NPRI. They reported approximately 4.98 million tonnes covering over 320 substances:

• 2.81 million tonnes of pollutants were released directly to the environment (i.e., air, water and land)
• 1.83 million tonnes were disposed to landfills, applied to land or injected underground, either on the facility site or off-site
• 338,638 tonnes were transferred off the facility site for treatment prior to final disposal or for recycling and energy recovery

Between 2011 and 2020, reported releases to the environment decreased by 640,085 tonnes. Total disposals and transfers increased by 119,388 tonnes in that period.

Other releases

In some instances, Canadian facilities report total releases of substances (i.e., releases where media is unspecified). This category applies where the total release quantity was less than one tonne.

Between 2011 and 2020, these types of releases decreased by 62 tonnes (17%).

Disposals and transfers for recycling

Of the 4.98 million tonnes reported in 2020, substance disposals (i.e., on-site and off-site) and transfers for recycling accounted for approximately 2.17 million tonnes, or 44%.

While the disposal of substances in waste rock (i.e., rock removed to reach ore) accounted for 385,830 tonnes of the 4.98 million tonnes reported to the NPRI, this figure increased by 370,219 tonnes (2,371%) between 2011 and 2020. This is mainly due to higher reported quantities of substances contained in waste rock from the mining and quarrying sector.

The disposal of substances in tailings (i.e., materials left when minerals are removed from ore) accounted for 989,275 tonnes of the 4.98 million tonnes reported to the NPRI. Between 2011 and 2020, disposals of substances in tailings has increased by 361,395 tonnes (58%). This was also due to higher reported quantities of substances in tailings from the mining and quarrying sector.

Other disposals (i.e., on-site and off-site) accounted for 292,424 tonnes and 159,072 tonnes of the 4.98 million tonnes reported, respectively. On-site disposals decreased by 76,391 tonnes (21%) between 2011 and 2020 and off-site disposals decreased by 215,792 tonnes (58%) over the same period.

Off-site transfers for recycling and treatment accounted for 338,638 tonnes of the 4.98 million tonnes reported in 2020. Between 2011 and 2020, this figure has decreased by 320,043 tonnes (49%).

Note: In some cases, adding quantities of a substance transferred off-site (e.g., to specialized waste management facilities) to quantities of that substance disposed of (e.g., by the waste management facility) can lead to double counting. This may occur when a substance is generated at one site, then transferred to another site for waste treatment prior to disposal, and subsequently transferred to a final disposal site. In this case, double- or triple-counting of the original off-site transfer may occur due to aggregating reports from multiple facilities involved in the waste management process of a single quantity of substance. For more information, please visit our Guide for using and interpreting National Pollutant Release Inventory data.

Map of facilities reporting to the NPRI for 2020, by industry sector

Note: This map shows the NPRI reporting facilities for 2020 (7,168 facilities), excluding those that did not meet the reporting criteria (1,214 facilities).

Regional overview

Effects of COVID-19

There were a total of 2,058 shutdown periods reported to the NPRI in 2020, which is slightly higher than 2019 (1,993). Facilities are not required to explain why they shutdown, so we cannot determined with any certainty if shutdowns were caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in the report comments, 205 facilities indicated that they had temporarily shut down due to the pandemic.

The key industrial sectors that reported the largest number of COVID-19-related shutdowns are:

• Wood Products – 42 (20% of COVID-19-related shutdowns)
• Transportation Equipment Manufacturing – 39 (19%)
• Other Manufacturing – 34 (17%)

Prices for products manufactured in Canada have increased since the beginning of the pandemic, potentially putting pressure on many manufacturing facilities reporting to the NPRI. In particular, the price of lumber and other wood products has increased significantly as a result of the pandemic and other factors, contributing to the imbalance in wood supply and demand.

139 facilities reported that some or all of their releases have decreased from the previous year directly due to COVID-19. Releases (air, water and land) from these facilities decreased by 27,859 tonnes (13.4%) from 2019 to 2020, despite a general upwards trend from 2011.  Among these emissions, a significant decrease in ethylene glycol releases was noted, mainly from airports that use this substance as a de-icer. From the beginning of the pandemic, aircraft movements at major Canadian airports and the number of passengers travelling by air dropped drastically. A decrease in airport activity may therefore explain the changes observed in the NPRI data. Statistics Canada has other data on overall production decreases due to COVID-19.

Pollution prevention plans

Pollution prevention involves identifying the causes of waste and pollution and finding ways to minimize them. A facility’s pollution prevention plan includes an examination of current operations and steps to eliminate or reduce pollution at its source.

1,034^{Footnote 1}  reporting facilities had pollution prevention plans in place in 2020. Of these plans:

• 679 were prepared voluntarily
• 343 were prepared to meet the requirements of provincial or territorial governments
• 68 were prepared to meet the requirements of a notice under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (e.g., the pollution prevention planning notice for toluene diisocyanates)

Most of the pollution prevention plans (745) targeted harmful substances, such as mercury, lead, and nitrogen oxides.

Pollution prevention activities

3,338 facilities (47% of reporting facilities) reported 4,953 pollution prevention activities. Facilities can implement activities stemming from seven main categories in order to prevent pollution. For 2020, the most common activity category was “Good operating practice or training”, with 2,530 activities completed. The second most common activity was “Spill and leak prevention”, with 927 activities completed.

Activities reported for 2019, by industry sector

For examples of how reporting facilities have previously implemented actions within each of these categories, see How to green your business by preventing pollution.

The remaining 3,831 facilities (53% of reporting facilities) declared not having implemented activities in the 2020 reporting year. Barriers to implementation included:

• unknown or unavailable alternatives (1,146 facilities)
• additional activities being unnecessary of unfeasible at this time (991 facilities)
• insufficient understanding of pollution prevention (314 facilities)
• insufficient capital (285 facilities);
• concern that product quality may decline as a result of activities (110 facilities);
• other reasons (1,025 facilities).

The most common barrier was "unknown or unavailable alternatives".

Access NPRI data

Download the complete NPRI data in various formats from the Government of Canada open data portal and the NPRI datasets webpage.

We invite you to contact the National Pollutant Release Inventory by email at inrp-npri@ec.gc.ca if you would like more information or if you have any questions on the data.

Source: NPRI Data as of January 24, 2022