One Australian address in ten is within 1 km of an industrial site that reports its emissions
We measured 15.1 million addresses against the 3,452 factories, plants, quarries, power stations, depots and treatment works that reported to the National Pollutant Inventory for 2024-25. 1.55 million addresses are within 1 km of one. Within the same city and distance from the CBD, suburbs close to them have lower house prices in 17 of 21 comparisons.
Every year, industrial sites over a set size report what they emit to the National Pollutant Inventory. For 2024-25, 3,452 of them were factories, quarries and mines, power stations, fuel and chemical depots, waste sites and water and sewage treatment works. We measured how far each of Australia's 15.1 million addresses is from the nearest one.
1,551,980 addresses, one in ten, are within 1 km of one of these sites. 378,228 are within 500 m, and 4,992,894, a third of all addresses, are within 2 km.
| Addresses | Within 500 m | Within 1 km | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tasmania | 347,598 | 3.1% | 14.5% |
| South Australia | 1,131,580 | 3.1% | 12.1% |
| Victoria | 3,967,997 | 3.1% | 11.9% |
| New South Wales | 4,647,916 | 2.4% | 11.0% |
| Queensland | 3,116,786 | 2.1% | 8.4% |
| Northern Territory | 110,328 | 2.1% | 8.2% |
| Western Australia | 1,536,379 | 1.7% | 6.9% |
| ACT | 246,121 | 0.6% | 2.5% |
| Australia | 15,108,510 | 2.5% | 10.3% |
An address is any place with its own street address, so it includes shops and workplaces as well as homes. In the most industrial suburbs, many of the addresses near a site are businesses.
Mostly factories
Factories account for most of it. 921,325 addresses are within 1 km of a manufacturing site, against 305,216 near a fuel or chemical depot, 227,670 near a water or sewage treatment works, 104,981 near a waste site, 100,058 near a power station and 43,221 near a mine or quarry. An address near more than one kind of site is counted in the total for each kind.
"Factory" covers more than heavy industry. Inner suburbs are near the top because they still have food and drink plants. In Milton, Brisbane, every address is within 1 km of a reporting site: the Castlemaine Perkins brewery and the Visy glassworks. In Camperdown, Sydney, almost every address is within 1 km of the Malt Shovel Brewery. Marleston, in Adelaide, sits beside the Arnott's biscuit plant. In Brooklyn, in Melbourne's west, the neighbours include a Veolia waste site and a tallow plant.
Lower prices in the same part of the same city
Suburbs near industry tend to be cheaper, but they also tend to be older, closer in or further out, and built for workers, so a plain comparison would measure all of that at once. We compared suburbs in the same capital city and the same distance band from the CBD: those where at least a quarter of addresses are within 1 km of a site, against those with none within 1 km.
In 17 of 21 comparisons, the suburbs near industrial sites had a lower median house price. The typical gap was 17%.
| Distance from CBD | Near a site | None nearby | Gap | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | 10–20 km | $917,500 | $1,725,000 | −47% |
| Perth | 0–10 km | $882,500 | $1,543,875 | −43% |
| Brisbane | 20–30 km | $888,000 | $1,240,000 | −28% |
| Sydney | 20–30 km | $1,626,000 | $2,241,250 | −28% |
| Adelaide | 0–10 km | $1,056,000 | $1,400,000 | −25% |
| Sydney | 10–20 km | $2,700,000 | $2,701,000 | 0% |
| Adelaide | 30–50 km | $881,750 | $735,750 | +20% |
The gap is not the same everywhere: none in Sydney's 10–20 km band, and the other way round in outer Adelaide. And it does not show that the sites lower prices. Suburbs that grew up around industry differ from their neighbours in other ways, from the age and size of their houses to who has lived there. What it does show is that, within a city, being near a reporting site and paying less for a house tend to go together.
What the inventory does and does not tell you
The inventory records what each site estimates it emitted over the year, substance by substance. It does not measure what reaches a home. Most sites report because they pass a threshold of fuel use or of a listed substance, not because they are a known problem, and a site near a house is not evidence of a health risk to the people in it.
How we measured
- Sites are those that reported to the National Pollutant Inventory for 2024-25 (DCCEEW, CC BY 4.0), in manufacturing, mining and quarrying, power generation, fuel and chemical wholesaling, waste, and water and sewage treatment. We left out gas pipelines and meter stations (a pipeline is recorded as a single point), farms, hospitals, ports and rail.
- Distances are straight lines from each G-NAF address point to each site's reported location.
- Prices are median house sale prices over the past two years in suburbs with at least 10 sales, in the capital cities (Darwin and Canberra had too few suburbs to compare). Distance bands are from each suburb to its CBD; a comparison needed at least five suburbs on each side.
Every suburb page on SuburbScan lists the reporting facilities within 5 km and their main emissions.