About this Manual

The aggregated emissions manuals complement the NPI Industry handbooks, and are intended to enable State and Territory Governments to estimate emissions from non-industrial activities (e.g. transportation, domestic and commercial activities) and emissions from industry which are not reported because the relevant thresholds are not exceeded.

Products containing solvents are used in a variety of industrial applications. The solvents in these products contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are emitted to the atmosphere when these products are used. This manual has been prepared for estimating emissions from the industrial use of solvents by those facilities that are not required to report to jurisdictions under the NEPM.

This manual considers emissions from products used by industry exclusively for solvent degreasing and surface cleaning. Techniques for estimating aggregated emissions from the industrial use of solvents for other purposes or applications are provided in the following NPI aggregated emissions manuals:
- Architectural Surface Coatings;
- Motor Vehicle Refinishing; and
- Printing and Graphic Arts.

In addition, there are expected to be other solvents or solvent-containing products used by smaller industrial facilities which would not be reported to the NPI. At present there is no means of identifying these additional uses or estimating the emissions that they may produce, although they are not considered to be as large as the emissions addressed in this manual and the other three manuals listed above.

First published in November 1999
National Pollutant Inventory
Environment Australia

Application of the Manual

Each of the aggregated emissions manuals provides details of:

• the NPI substances that are expected to be emitted from the relevant aggregated source type;
• the origins or sources of the emissions, and the processes that may generate them;
• the impacts of any control equipment or procedures on those emissions;
• the broad approaches that may be employed in the estimation and spatial allocation of emissions;
• details of emission factors to be used in the estimation of emissions; and
• a series of illustrative sample calculations for each estimation technique.