Hazardous Waste Management Industry Survey

Detailed information for 2012

Status:

Inactive

Frequency:

Occasional

Record number:

5199

This survey collects data on the amount of hazardous waste handled by businesses in the Canadian Hazardous Waste Management industry. The data will be used to compile a national-level estimate of the amount of hazardous waste that is processed at Canadian facilities. The data will also be used by Environment Canada to fulfill international reporting requirements under the Basel Convention.

Data release - March 24, 2014

Description

This survey measures the amount of hazardous waste that is handled at Canadian business establishments in the hazardous waste management industry. It includes hazardous wastes that are accepted at transfer stations, intermediate processing facilities and final destination hazardous waste treatment and disposal/recycling facilities. This information represents a current data gap in Canada's overall waste management industry statistics. Environment Canada is the primary data user: they will use the data to monitor hazardous waste management in Canada, partly for the purpose of fulfilling international reporting requirements under the Basel Convention.

Reference period: Calendar year

Subjects

  • Environment
  • Pollution and waste

Data sources and methodology

Target population

All companies operating in Canada that are involved in whole or in part in the processing of hazardous waste are eligible to be selected for this survey.

Instrument design

The questionnaire was designed through consultations with Environment Canada regarding content and concepts. It was tested through a series of one-on-one interviews conducted by Statistics Canada's Questionnaire Design Resource Centre (QDRC) in both French and English, during which participants were asked for their comments regarding terminology, concepts and ease in which the data could be provided.

Sampling

This survey is a census with a cross-sectional design.

Data are collected for all units of the target population, therefore, no sampling is done.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2013-03-01 to 2013-05-31

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

Data are collected directly from respondents using a paper questionnaire (mail-out, mail-back). Data capture is done manually from imaged questionnaires, entered into the Blaise system for edit checking and subsequent follow-up, if required. Non-response follow-up is also conducted.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

Editing is done during collection on a micro-data level, using a tailored Blaise application that is based on edit specifications that were provided by the subject matter area. Most edits focus on consistency-based logic, as no historical data is available for comparison. Further processing and analysis is conducted by subject matter to ensure clean responses are used for final data processing.

Imputation

Selective conversion was made in order to get the same units of measurement for all responses. Since exact conversion factors could not always be used, simple and reasonable assumptions about them had to be made.

Estimation

The survey is a census and all of the population characteristics of interest to be estimated are all totals. For some components of the questionnaire, response is complete while for others there is some non-response. For estimates coming out of non-response-free components, no adjustment was required: the estimate is the sum of the reported data. For all others, a non-response adjustment was used. Based on subject-matter expertise and a follow-up with non-respondents, each non-respondent was paired with respondents deemed comparable. The survey weight of these respondents was increased to represent non-respondents that were assigned to them.

Quality evaluation

Data are subject to a series of edit-checks during collection to ensure consistency between responses. Follow-up with respondents takes place when responses are noted that were are outside of expected ranges.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

In order to prevent any data disclosure, confidentiality analysis is done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Disclosure Control System (G-Confid). G-Confid is used for primary suppression (direct disclosure) as well as for secondary suppression (residual disclosure). Direct disclosure occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of or dominated by few enterprises while residual disclosure occurs when confidential information can be derived indirectly by piecing together information from different sources or data series.

Data accuracy

The Generalized Estimation System was used to produce all of the estimates and, for each, a measure of its reliability in the form of a variance estimate based on respondents that have contributed to the estimate.

The imputation described above that was needed to ensure consistency within the data may have introduced some imprecision of its own into the estimates.

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