The Pollution Prevention and Control Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003

SECTION 2.1 FERROUS METALS

Part A

(a) Roasting or sintering metal ore, including sulphide ore, or any mixture of iron ore with or without other materials.

(b) Producing, melting or refining iron or steel or any ferrous alloy, including continuous casting, except where the only furnaces used are–

(i) electric arc furnaces with a designed holding capacity of less than 7 tonnes, or

(ii) cupola, crucible, reverbatory, rotary, induction or resistance furnaces.

(c) Processing ferrous metals and their alloys by using hot-rolling mills with a production capacity of more than 20 tonnes of crude steel per hour.

(d) Loading, unloading or otherwise handling or storing more than 500,000 tonnes in total in any period of 12 months of iron ore, except in the course of mining operations, or burnt pyrites.

(e) Producing pig iron or steel, including continuous casting, in a plant with a production capacity of more than 2.5 tonnes per hour unless falling within paragraph (b) of this Part of this Section.

(f) Operating hammers in a forge, the energy of which is more than 50 kilojoules per hammer, where the calorific power used is more than 20 megawatts.

(g) Applying protective fused metal coatings with an input of more than 2 tonnes of crude steel per hour.

(h) Casting ferrous metal at a foundry with a production capacity of more than 20 tonnes per day.

Part B

Casting iron, steel or any ferrous alloy from deliveries of 50 tonnes or more of molten metal, unless falling within Part A of this Section.

Part C

(a) Producing pig iron or steel, including continuous casting, in a plant with a production capacity of 2.5 tonnes or less per hour, unless falling within paragraph (b) of Part A of this Section.

(b) Producing, melting or refining iron or steel or any ferrous alloy (other than producing pig iron or steel, including continuous casting) using–

(i) one or more electric arc furnaces, none of which has a designed holding capacity of 7 tonnes or more; or

(ii) a cupola, crucible, reverberatory, rotary, induction or resistance furnace,

unless falling within paragraph (e) or (h) of Part A of this Section.

(c) Desulphurising iron, steel or any ferrous alloy.

(d) Heating iron, steel or any ferrous alloy (whether in a furnace or other appliance) to remove grease, oil or any other non-metallic contaminant (including such operations as the removal by heat of plastic or rubber covering from scrap cable) unless–

(i) it is carried out in one or more furnaces or other appliances the primary combustion chambers of which have in aggregate a rated thermal input of less than 0.2 megawatts;

(ii) it does not involve the removal by heat of plastic or rubber covering from scrap cable or of any asbestos contaminant; and

(iii) it is not related to any other activity falling within this Part of this Section.

Interpretation of Section 2.1

In this Section, “ferrous alloy” means an alloy of which iron is the largest constituent, or equal to the largest constituent, by weight, whether or not that alloy also has a non-ferrous metal content greater than any percentage specified in Section 2.2.