The Legislation of Steel Manufacture: Environmental Aspects - Essay Example

Steel Manufacture: Environmental Aspects Prepared by Submitted to Word Count Excluding References 1. Introduction Feedback: Steel Production involves hazardous pollutants that affect the communities living around. There is every chance of arising health problems as well as environmental disasters if the problem is not controlled. The melting of scrap metal in large electric furnaces, steel fabrication plants, which moulds and paints the steel products are mainly responsible for the release of pollutants. Each factory, if not follows the environmental regulations, may result in emitting of thousands of tons of pollutant air emissions every year. As there are thousands of steel factories all over the world and number of them in UK and Europe there is every need to control the emissions to protect the environment. The dust and waste produced by steel furnaces contains lead and cadmium and even contaminates the soil and ground water. The release of nitrogen oxide and other volatile organic compounds demand pollution control equipment to limit emissions of above-mentioned gases. 1 Environmental Protection Act: This act is applied to certain processes and substances that are responsible for environmental pollution. This act deals with background concentration of water and is important in the context of steel plants. By the phrase background concentration, it considers the concentration of pollutants in the water supplied to the plant and compares with the water released. This is an important measurement in case of steel plants as they are capable of polluting under water resources as well as surface water resources. The rules in the act determine the description of the processes involved. They consider that three hot blast cupolas operated by same person or organisation at same place would constitute iron and steel process for local authority. The descriptions in the act include other process (es) carried on at the same location by same person or organisation. The act regulated the old processes and steam lined the new processes by registration and made Integration pollution control prevail over environmental care regarding steel industry. 2 Integration Pollution Control: The Integrated Pollution Control is accepted as part of environmental regulatory system of UK and European Union Countries. It deals with unified environmental statutes and alternative compliance approaches as the industries like steel manufacturing are unavoidable for the sustenance of the society. The aspects of the Integrated Pollution Control deals with alternative measures that can be taken to counter the pollution effects of the steel manufacturing for the emissions that are not possible to avoid. However, the European Union’s recently adopted directive on IPC have profound influence on environment management in UK, the comparison of environmental policies among countries are laden with difficulties. The degree of public participation in decision making of establishing a steel industry is necessary in integrated pollution control directives. The directives in this system demand the government to provide appropriate incentives for industries and consumers to incite the environment quality and its improvement. The IPC resulted in unified pollution inspectorate in UK. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution (HMIP) has been able to deal with most polluting and complex industrial processes. This is due to the combination of functions of industrial air pollution inspectorate with hazardous wastes inspectorate with water pollution staff. All these inspectorates within the department of environment have been coordinated with integrated pollution control system. This assured not only environmental constraints but also protection activities from the side of industry and government. This is done by rationalisation of the processes regarding pollution control system and environmental protection agencies. In principle, the Integrated Pollution Control after introduction of Environmental Protection Act prevented pollution from a wide range of industries. Steel Manufacturing processes are subjected to IPC evaluated potential damage to the environment by their processes. This enabled them to select the best environmental option (BPEO) in case their processes resulted in release of potential environmental pollutants. The techniques that help in releasing harmless emissions are adopted. 5,000 most potentially polluting processes have come under integrated pollution control and have been controlled. 3 Waste Management Licences: The Waste management licensing involves both consultations and compensations. The compensation has been introduced to minimise the violation as the administration is entitled to compensate the victims at the cost of violators. The compensation will be calculated according to the regulation 4 and according to the cost of the damage to the victims. The compensation is also regarding the compulsory acquisition of land to use it for the betterment of victims and management of environment. In case of determination of compensation regarding disputes, the holder of licence and the grantor if agree for the single payment or instalments, then it will be paid according to the norms prescribed. If not the matter goes to the land tribunal. The licence holder should carry out a works that are not entitled to him/it in past. Failure of delivering the works mentioned may result in cancellation of waste management licence. This system helped in neutralising the emissions by the activities of waste management licensees. 4 Water Resource Management Act: The water Resource Management Act provided the guidelines regarding blast furnace slag in steel manufacturing. This has been classified and enabled the environment agency to reconsider view of material status of blast furnace slag. This change is due to the condition that the blast furnace slag has to be proved not a waste that pollutes soil, water or air under the accepted norms. Failure of that involves the payment of the compensation by the company to the administration. This gave a legal position for environmental agency in treating the blast furnace slags as waste or a non-waste. 5 The accidents in the work place particularly in the industries such as steel industry impoverish the lives of victims and demoralise the members of the staff. This even cost firms money in compensation claims. The implementation of health and safety measures include not only safety and health for workers but also increase in production due to the measures taken and savings regarding the money related to payments of compensation. The absence of health and safety measures is capable of costing the steel production due to the decrease in the efficiency of the workers. In 1953, Ebbw Vale started with 13,000 workers has been closed in later years due to the loss of production by the absence of health and safety of workers. It costs the lives of the workers also. The introduction of health and safety act in 1974 has seen the following years a marked decrease in fatal and non-fatal accidents from 651 to 159 and 335,000 to 111,000 in heavy industries. 6 Clean Air Act: Section 18 of clean air act allows the local authorities to take action on extra emissions. Thus, it makes local authorities as part of the environmental protection regarding steel manufacturing as blast furnaces and other heating processes are involved in it. The surroundings of steel industry are observed to be dominated by the smoke evolving from them. To minimise this, the act makes it compulsory that the smoke emitted from authorised fuels under the act. The fuels like Redcar coke nuts are used in many steel manufacturing factories to minimise the affects of the emissions. The authority given to the local authorities enable the local communities to decide on the smoke emissions and this makes the steel industry aware of the environmental protection measures that reduce emissions. 7 The extra provisions and controls in the acts mentioned for the steel industry made it difficult to arrange the onsite transport for the conveyance or it needs extra investment. This is because the locations accepted as the ideal site for the location of the plant, which satisfies the conditions in the acts may need extra transportation facilities and the climate and altitude may not be suitable for the plant. The arrangement of health safety arrangements for workers and arranging them residences near by and by locating majority of the plants and ancillary industries at one place, the problems posed by the acts to the industry can be minimised. For this purpose, the steel industry can follow the system of four wheeler and truck manufacturers, which demand the ancillary industries to be located near by the main plant. The same thing followed in the case of steel manufacturing firms can solve the majority of problems posed by different acts regarding environment, health and safety. References 1. UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, 2000, U.S. REACHES ENVIRONMENTAL SETTLEMENT, WITH STEEL MANUFACTURER NUCOR, US Department of Justice, Volume information not available, Retrieved on 2nd March 2008 from http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/9eb593c7e2c54803852569ba006165a8!OpenDocument&Highlight=2,asbestos 2. Scottish Executive, 1991, Environmental Protection Act 1990, Scottish Executive, Volume information not available, Retrieved on 2nd March 2008 from http://www.scotland.gov.uk/housing/leaflets/epa1-05.asp 3. Robert Hersh, 1996, A Review of Integrated Pollution Control Efforts in Selected Countries, Resources for the future, Volume information not available, Retrieved on 2nd March 2008 from http://www.rff.org/Documents/RFF-DP-97-15.pdf 4. Crown Copyright, 1999, Waste Management Licensing, UK Government, Volume 481, Retrieved on 2nd March 2008 from http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1999/19990481.htm 5. Environmental Agency, 2000, BFS, Environmental Agency, Volume information not available, Retrieved on 2nd March 2008 from http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/commondata/acrobat/wra01_26_bfs_1845261.pdf 6. Lord Harrison, 2006, Health and Safety at Work, House of Lords Debates, Theyworkforyou.com, Volume information not available, Retrieved on 3rd march 2008 from http://www.theyworkforyou.com/lords/?id=2006-01-26c.1281.2 7. Government of UK, 1991, CLEAN AIR ACT 1993: SMOKE CONTROL, Government of UK, Volume Information not available, Retrieved on 3rd March from http://www.kingston.gov.uk/list_of_authorised_fuels.pdf Read More