Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory: 2022 data highlights

Data collected by the National Pollutant Release Inventory’s (NPRI) is essential for observing pollution patterns and trends across Canada. Since 1993, the NPRI has collected comprehensive data from industrial facilities, tracking releases to the air, water and land, as well as the management and transfer of pollutants. Year after year, facilities meeting NPRI reporting requirements must report. Please note that quality control activities and facility reporting updates may impact the data presented. The data used in this analysis is from November 27, 2023, providing current perspective on the pollution situation.

2022 data at a glance

In 2022, 7,375 facilities declared their emissions to the NPRI, reporting approximately 4.90 million tonnes of pollutants, covering over 300 substances:

• Of these emissions, 2.87 million tonnes were released directly to the environment, including, air, water, and land.

• 1.71 million tonnes were disposed of by landfilling, tailings management, waste rock management, or injected underground, either on the facility site or off-site.

• 343,043 tonnes were transferred off-site for treatment prior to final disposal or for recycling and energy recovery.

Between 2013 and 2022, reported releases to the environment decreased by 566,449 tonnes (16%). Total disposals and transfers increased by 456,223 tonnes (29%) in that period.

Other releases

In some instances, Canadian facilities report total releases of substances: these are releases where the environment (i.e., air, water, land) of the release is unspecified. This category applies  only to certain substances in the NPRI and only where the total release quantity was less than one tonne. 

Between 2013 and 2022, these types of releases decreased by 164 tonnes (37%).

Disposals and transfers for recycling

In 2022, of the 4.9 million tonnes of total substances reported, disposals of substances (i.e., on-site and off-site), and transfers for recycling accounted for approximately 2.04 million tonnes, or 42% of the total.

The disposal of substances in tailings, including residual materials from minerals extraction, accounted for 888,996 tonnes of the 2.04 million tonnes reported to the NPRI. Between 2013 and 2022, disposals of substances in tailings increased by 173,528 tonnes (24%). 

As for the disposal of substances in waste rock, made up of rocks removed to reach ore, it accounted for 266,128 tonnes of the 2.04 million tonnes of disposals and transfers for recycling reported to the NPRI. This figure increased by 140 823 tonnes (112%) between 2013 and 2022. This increase is mainly due to increase in the quantities of substances reported by the mining and quarrying sector.

Other disposals (i.e., on-site and off-site) accounted for 446,738 tonnes and 90,784 tonnes of the 2.04 million tonnes reported, respectively. On-site disposals increased by 208,449 tonnes (87%) between 2013 and 2022 and off-site disposals decreased by 70,932 tonnes (44%) over the same period.

Off-site transfers for recycling and treatment accounted for 343,043 tonnes of the 2.04 million tonnes reported for 2022 disposals and transfers. Between 2013 and 2022, this figure increased by 4,355 tonnes (1%).

Note: For better understanding, it is important to note that in some cases there may be a duplication of the quantities of substances declared. This situation occurs when the same substance is transferred off-site to a specialized waste management site and subsequently transferred to a final disposal site, resulting in double counting. As a result, a substance maybe counted multiple times for a single release if reports from different facilities involved in waste management are combined For more information, please visit our Guide for using and interpreting National Pollutant Release Inventory data.

Map of facilities reporting to the NPRI for 2022, by industry sector

Note: This map shows the NPRI reporting facilities for 2022 (7,375 facilities), excluding those that did not meet the reporting criteria (1,063 facilities).

Regional overview

30 years of data

In 1993, facilities began reporting to the NPRI, launching a new era of environmental transparency. With the 2022 data, we celebrate 30 years of publicly available data. 

The following graph illustrates how changes to the reporting requirements have increased the number of substances and facilities that are reported to the program over the years. The interactive graph below will produce additional contextual information for that particular year.

Among the major events of the last thirty years, let us mention:

• In 1999, the NPRI significantly expanded its monitoring scope by adding 76 substances to its list, bringing the total of substances monitored from 176 to 245. This increase represented a significant increase of 29% in the total number of substances monitored by the NPRI. 

• From 2001 to 2003, the NPRI expanded its reporting requirements to include oil and gas facilities, in addition to introducing 60 volatile organic compound and seven critical air contaminants. This development let to an increase in the number of facilities providing their data to the NPRI, from 2,626 in 2001 to 8,350 in 2003, an increase of 218% in just two years.

Pollution prevention plans

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

932^{Footnote 1}  reporting facilities had pollution prevention plans in place in 2021. Of these plans:

• 610 were prepared voluntarily
• 385 were prepared to meet the requirements of provincial or territorial governments
• 105 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)

Pollution prevention activities

Facilities are not required to have a pollution prevention plan in order to implement activities to prevent pollution. In 2022, 3,219 facilities (representing 43% of reporting facilities) reported 25,318 pollution prevention activities. These activities can be grouped into seven main categories that facilities can choose to implement. In 2022, the most frequently reported category of activity was “Good operating practice or training”, with 16,473 activities carries out. The second most common activity was “Spill and leak prevention”, with 2,299 activities reported.

To learn more about pollution prevention, as well as concrete examples of activities implemented by reporting facilities, please see how your business can prevent pollution.

In 2022, pollution prevention activities were undertaken for 162 substances, representing 78% of substances reported to the NPRI. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) were the substances for which the greatest number of pollution prevention activities were implemented.

However, the remaining 4,222 facilities^{Footnote 2}    (or 57% of reporting facilities) indicated reported not having implemented pollution prevention activities during 2022 for various reasons. These reasons include:

^{Footnoteunknown or unavailable alternatives (1,260 facilities)}

• Unknown or unavailable alternatives (1,274 facilities)

• Additional activities being unnecessary or unfeasible at this time (1,110 facilities)

• Insufficient understanding of pollution prevention (475 facilities)

• Insufficient capital (376 facilities)

• Limits due to regulatory or permit obligations (147 facilities)

• Concern that product quality may decline as a result of activities (110 facilities)

Access NPRI data

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

For any additional information or if you have any questions regarding the data, do not hesitate to contact us via email at inrp-npri@ec.gc.ca.

Don’t miss this opportunity to discover and explore these valuable resources for a comprehensive understanding of the current environmental situation.

Source: NPRI Data as of November 27, 2023.