Pollution: new European register gives public access to information on emissions from European industrial facilities (2024)

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Press Release Published 05 Nov 2009 Last modified 03 Jun 2016

3 min read

Topics: Water and marine environment Resource efficiency and waste

To achieve the public participation objective set by the Aarhus Convention, people first need to know what is happening to their environment and what is at stake. With this new register, we take an important step in placing more environmental information at their fingertips. Anyone can now see how much pollution is being released to air and water from facilities in their neighbourhood or region.

Prof. Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director of the EEA

Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said: "Transparency is a vitaltool for improving our environment. I welcome the opening of this register. Itdemonstrates a genuine commitment by the public authorities and industry to shareinformation with citizens and increase openness. I thank them for theircooperation."

Professor Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director of the EuropeanEnvironment Agency, said: "To achieve the public participation objectiveset by the Aarhus Convention, people first need to know what is happening totheir environment and what is at stake. With this new register, we take animportant step in placing more environmental information at their fingertips.Anyone can now see how much pollution is being released to air and water fromfacilities in their neighbourhood or region."

What does the register cover?

In order to improve public access to environmental information, a newE-PRTR register has been set up, containing data reported by individualfacilities.

It provides details for 2007 of pollutants released from specificfacilities to air, water and land. Its scope covers for instance 30 % of total NO_x(nitrogen oxides) emissions (i.e. most emissions from sources other thantransport), and 76 % of total SO_x (sulphur oxides) emissions to air in the EU-27 countries and Norway. Theregister also shows the amount of waste and waste water transferred to otherlocations, including transboundary transfers of hazardous waste, and givespreliminary information on pollutants from 'diffuse' sources released to water,such as nitrogen and phosphorus loss from agriculture.

The website hasa powerful search engine that allows visitors to search using one or morecriteria and a map tool. For example, visitors can search the amount of hazardous and non-hazardous wastetransferred from facilities in a country (waste search), or releases from aspecific industrial site by name or location (facility search).

What kind of information can be obtained?

E-PRTR reveals, for example, that:

• Often a small number offacilities make large overall contributions to the total amount of pollutantsreleased in Europe. For instance, just fivelarge combustion plants were collectively responsible for more than 20 % of allE-PRTR sulphur oxide emissions to air in 2007. Sulphur oxides contribute to bothenvironmental acidification and the formation of health-damaging particulatematter.

• More than 54 million tonnes ofhazardous waste were transferred from E-PRTR facilities. Most hazardous wasteis recovered or disposed of within the country where it originates; just asmall fraction of it (approximately 6 %) is transported across borders.

Background

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Convention onAccess to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access toJustice in Environmental Matters (the 'Aarhus Convention') grants the publicrights to access environmental information.

In 2003, parties to the Aarhus Convention adopted the Protocol onPollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR), which entered into force on 8October 2009. The European Community is a signatory to the Protocol and haspassed a Regulation (EC No 166/2006) to implement it. The Regulation definesminimum levels of activity and pollution above which information must bereported. It also goes beyond the PRTR Protocol by requiring Member States toreport information on an additional five pollutants and imposing more stringentreporting thresholds for another six.

From 2010 onwards, the information in E-PRTR will be updated in Aprileach year. In addition to the 27 Member States of the European Union, it alsoincludes data from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. The website, including the information on diffuse source releases, willgradually be improved in coming months.

The former European pollutant register EPER covered 50 pollutantsreleased to air and water from 56 industrial activities in 12 000 facilities in26 countries (EU-25 and Norway).EPER required countries to report only every third year and includedinformation from just two reporting years — 2001 and 2004.

About the EuropeanEnvironment Agency (EEA)

The EEA is based in Copenhagen.The Agency helps achieve significant and measurable improvement in Europe's environment by providing timely, targeted,relevant and reliable information to policy-makers and the public.

Contact information

For mediainquiries: Ms Gülçin Karadeniz, Press officer;gulcin.karadenizat eea.europa.eu; mobile +45 23 68 36 53