Recovered Needles and Glass Pipes
This dataset contains reports of needles and glass pipes that have been recovered from the community by City staff, Needle Hunters and residents or businesses. The methods of data collection and reporting vary between retrieval stream. A description of each retrieval stream is included below
Needle Hunters
Ottawa Public Health’s Needle Hunters proactively retrieve discarded drug use equipment in several high activity communities. In the summer season, the Needle Hunters follow walking routes that cover Vanier, Lowertown, Sandyhill, the Byward Market, Centretown, Preston, Somerset West and Carlington. In the winter, the Needle Hunters follow two extended walking routes that cover the Byward Market/Sandy Hill and Centretown area. Exact routes and retrieval locations can be found here.
Needle Hunters record the location, quantity, and type of each item collected. The location of items is accurate to the city block level or city park level, depending on where the item was found. Needle Hunter data is reported to Ottawa Public Health monthly with a reporting delay of six weeks from the last day of the month.
Data Source: Community Needle Retrieval Program, Ottawa Public Health
City Staff
With the integrated support of several City departments, City staff respond to 311 requests for drug use equipment retrieval anywhere on public property with a priority response. They also retrieve discarded drug use equipment found during their regular duties. Depending on the location of where an item is found, staff from the corresponding department will be dispatched, which may include:
- Public Works & Environmental Services
- Bylaw and Regulatory Services
- OC Transpo
- Ottawa Fire Services
- Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services
- Community and Social Services' (CSSD) Street Outreach team (starting in 2022)
- OPH's Harm Reduction Program
Data Source: City Staff Drug Use Equipment Reporting Form, Ottawa Public Health
Residents/Businesses
Ottawa residents are encouraged to report their findings to OPH when they personally retrieve and dispose of drug use equipment. Residents may report drug use equipment found on public and private property. Additional resources for residents who retrieve drug use equipment can be found here:
Residents report the location, quantity, and type of each item collected to Ottawa Public Health. Resident reporting was modernized in 2022 to enable reporting via webform. Data is aggregated monthly. If a resident chooses to request City staff to collect an item, the item is reported through the City Staff reporting stream.
Data Source: Public Drug Use Equipment Reporting Form, Ottawa Public Health
Accuracy: Due to privacy considerations, the location of retrieval is grouped to the nearest intersection. All location data is considered approximate neighbourhood and ward information is assigned to the data according to the nearest intersection, rather than the address of retrieval. Data points that fall on an overlapping boundary between a ward and a neighbourhood maybe associated to an adjacent neighbourhood that is outside the ward limits.
In some cases, needles/glass pipes are reported at a location that does not exist or without a location of retrieval. Data without a valid location are not associated to an intersection, neighbourhood or ward.
Update Frequency: Quarterly
Attributes:
- Source
- Date (Year-Month)
- Total Glass Pipes
- Intersection
- X Coordinate of Closest Intersection
- Y Coordinate of Closest Intersection
- Ward ID
- Ward Name
- ONS Neighbourhood ID
- ONS Neighbourhood Name
Datasets available for download
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Recovered_Needles_and_Glass_PipeTable
Layer 0 via ArcGIS REST API
-
Recovered_Needles_and_Glass_Pipe (Explore)HTML
Explore Recovered_Needles_and_Glass_Pipe on ArcGIS Hub
Additional Info
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| Last Updated | March 24, 2026, 20:39 (UTC) |
| Created | March 24, 2026, 20:39 (UTC) |
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Domain / Topic
Domain or topic of the dataset being cataloged.
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Title
Title for the Dataset.
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Recovered Needles and Glass Pipes |
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Description
A description of the dataset.
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This dataset contains reports of needles and glass pipes that have been recovered from the community by City staff, Needle Hunters and residents or businesses. The methods of data collection and reporting vary between retrieval stream. A description of each retrieval stream is included below
Needle Hunters
Data Source: City Staff Drug Use Equipment Reporting Form, Ottawa Public Health Residents/Businesses Ottawa residents are encouraged to report their findings to OPH when they personally retrieve and dispose of drug use equipment. Residents may report drug use equipment found on public and private property. Additional resources for residents who retrieve drug use equipment can be found here: Residents report the location, quantity, and type of each item collected to Ottawa Public Health. Resident reporting was modernized in 2022 to enable reporting via webform. Data is aggregated monthly. If a resident chooses to request City staff to collect an item, the item is reported through the City Staff reporting stream. Data Source: Public Drug Use Equipment Reporting Form, Ottawa Public Health Accuracy: Due to privacy considerations, the location of retrieval is grouped to the nearest intersection. All location data is considered approximate neighbourhood and ward information is assigned to the data according to the nearest intersection, rather than the address of retrieval. Data points that fall on an overlapping boundary between a ward and a neighbourhood maybe associated to an adjacent neighbourhood that is outside the ward limits. In some cases, needles/glass pipes are reported at a location that does not exist or without a location of retrieval. Data without a valid location are not associated to an intersection, neighbourhood or ward. Update Frequency: Quarterly Attributes:
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Tags / Keywords
Keywords/tags categorizing the dataset.
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Format (CSV, XLS, TXT, PDF, etc)
File format of the dataset.
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Dataset Size
Dataset size in megabytes.
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3352.0 |
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Metadata Identifier
Metadata identifier – can be used as the unique identifier for catalogue entry
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Published Date
Published date of the dataset.
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2024-11-15 |
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Time Period Data Span (start date)
Start date of the data in the dataset.
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Time Period Data Span (end date)
End date of time data in the dataset.
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GeoSpatial Area Data Span
A spatial region or named place the dataset covers.
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Access category
Type of access granted for the dataset (open, closed, service, etc).
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public |
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License
License used to access the dataset.
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https://open.ottawa.ca/pages/open-data-licence |
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Limits on use
Limits on use of data.
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Location
Location of the dataset.
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https://od-dev2-ottawa.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/ottawa::recovered-needles-and-glass-pipes |
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Data Service
Data service for accessing a dataset.
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Owner
Owner of the dataset.
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[email protected] |
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Contact Point
Who to contact regarding access?
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City of Ottawa |
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Contact Point Email
The email to contact regarding access?
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[email protected] |
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Publisher
Publisher of the dataset.
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City of Ottawa |
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Publisher Email
Email of the publisher.
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Author
Author of the dataset.
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[email protected] |
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Author Email
Email of the author.
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Accessed At
Date the data and metadata was accessed.
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2025-07-17 |
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Identifier
Unique identifier for the dataset.
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1df881ffb2a24576b63ae48f26714644 |
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Language
Language(s) of the dataset
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English |
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Link to dataset description
A URL to an external document describing the dataset.
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https://od-dev2-ottawa.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/ottawa::recovered-needles-and-glass-pipes |
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Persistent Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent identifier.
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Globally Unique Identifier
Data is identified by a persistent and globally unique identifier.
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Contains data about individuals
Does the data hold data about individuals?
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Contains data about identifiable individuals
Does the data hold identifiable data about individual?
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Contains Indigenous Data
Does the data hold data about Indigenous communities?
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Portal Type
Platform type of the source portal.
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Version
Version of the datatset
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None |
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Source
Source of the dataset.
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None |
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Version notes
Version notes about the dataset.
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Is version of another dataset
Link to dataset that it is a version of.
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Other versions
Link to datasets that are versions of it.
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Provenance Text
Provenance Text of the data.
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City of Ottawa |
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Provenance URL
Provenance URL of the data.
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Temporal resolution
Describes how granular the date/time data in the dataset is.
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GeoSpatial resolution in meters
Describes how granular (in meters) geospatial data is in the dataset.
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GeoSpatial resolution (in regions)
Describes how granular (in regions) geospatial data is in the dataset.
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Indigenous Community Permission
Who holds the Indigenous Community Permission. Who to contact regarding access to a dataset that has data about Indigenous communities.
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Community Permission
Community permission (who gave permission).
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The Indigenous communities the dataset is about
Indigenous communities from which data is derived.
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Number of data rows
If tabular dataset, total number of rows.
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10847 |
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Number of data columns
If tabular dataset, total number of unique columns.
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21 |
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Number of data cells
If tabular dataset, total number of cells with data.
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227787 |
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Number of data relations
If RDF dataset, total number of triples.
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Number of entities
If RDF dataset, total number of entities.
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Number of data properties
If RDF dataset, total number of unique properties used by the triples.
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Data quality
Describes the quality of the data in the dataset.
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Metric for data quality
A metric used to measure the quality of the data, such as missing values or invalid formats.
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