National Pollutant Inventory (NPI)
The NPI is an internet database designed to provide the community, industry and government with information on the types and amounts of certain substances being emitted to the air, land and water.
Since 1998, larger Australian facilities were required to estimate and report annually their emissions to the NPI. Estimation of emissions from smaller industry, households and everyday activities have been made by State and Territory environment authorities and listed on the data base.
The main objectives of the NPI are to:
- provide information to industry and government to assist in environmental planning and management;
- satisfy community demand for accessible information on emissions to the environment; and
- promote waste minimisation, cleaner production, energy and resource savings.
In overseeing the development of the Environment Protection Objective and consequent implementation of the NPI NEPM here in the NT the duties of the officers assigned with task have been to:
- helping industries to determine whether or not they need to report,
- estimate aggregated emission data on an annual basis,
- to promoting the use of the NPI within the Territory and to,
- help those who are interested in accessing the NPI to get the most from it.
An exception to this is the Department of Primary Industries, Fisheries and Mines that collects NPI reporting data from the mining industry.