UK Pollutant Release and Transfer Register: National Implementation Report 2021

Overview

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Implementation of the Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) under the Kiev Protocol – Call for views

October 2020

Introduction

The UK has a publicly available inventory of pollution from industrial sites and other specified sources. Known as the UK Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR), this is a searchable database providing information on the pollution from a wide range of industrial sites and for 91 pollutants dating back to 2007.

The UK’s PRTR can be accessed at the following web link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-pollutant-release-and-transfer-register-prtr-data-sets#.

The PRTR is an environmental database of potentially hazardous chemical substances and/or pollutants released to air, water and soil, and transferred off-site for treatment or disposal. It applies to specific industrial activities which meet or exceed stated pollutant thresholds. This means that an installation whose details are not shown on the PRTR is either not an industrial activity covered by PRTR or it has not reached the stated pollutant specific thresholds.

Further detail on the applicable industrial activities, pollutants and thresholds can be accessed at the following web link: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-pollutant-release-and-transfer-register-prtr-data-sets#pollutants-and-thresholds-list.

The United Kingdom (UK) is a Party to the UN Kiev Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR) which aims ‘to enhance public access to information through the establishment of coherent, nationwide PRTRs’. The Protocol requires Parties to provide information on pollution sources to members of the public. The UK PRTR website and database are important milestones towards the UK Government’s implementation of the Kiev Protocol on PRTRs.

Parties to the Protocol are requested to prepare a national implementation report which contains information on:

- The legislative, regulatory or other measures that have been taken to implement the provisions of the Kiev Protocol.

- The practical implementation of these measures at the national and regional levels.

Call for views

We are seeking views from interested organisations and individuals on the UK’s implementation of the Kiev Protocol on PRTR to inform the implementation report. We invite you to submit your thoughts and ideas with supporting evidence where possible, on the draft implementation report. The Protocol has been included in the supporting documents so that it can be reviewed alongside the National Implementation Report (NIR) for additional context.

Once the call for views has closed, all responses which have been submitted will be reviewed and considered for inclusion into the UK’s report. We will provide a summary of responses which will be published on gov.uk within three months of the closure of the call for views. This document will provide an analysis of all responses received.

You can submit your views on Defra’s citizen space and/or email your views and suggestions on the National Implementation Report (NIR) to PRTR@defra.gov.uk , responses must be submitted by 23.59 on 27 November 2020.

You are welcome to provide additional information or supporting evidence to support your response although we ask that you limit each response to 200 words.

What happens next

We received 8 responses to this call for views. We’ve analysed these responses and, where applicable to the national implementation report (NIR), incorporated them into the updated UK Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (PRTR) NIR. We submitted the final UK PRTR NIR to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe on 21 January 2021. The summary of responses can be found on: 

Summary of responses