New EPA rule restricts EFs to approved scrap sources

Dec 18, 2007 | 02:32 PM | Rory Carroll

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will require all electric furnace (EF) steelmakers to buy shredded ferrous scrap from junk vehicles exclusively from scrap processors that participate in the National Vehicle Mercury Switch Recovery Program under a new rule released Monday.

The program, the result of a two-year collaboration involving the EPA, states, environmental organizations, automakers, steelmakers and scrap processors, requires auto dismantlers and processors to remove all mercury switches from a vehicle before it is crushed or shredded.

Steelmakers will have three years to comply with the new rule, which also sets new limits for emissions of other toxic metal compounds by limiting particulate matter emissions. Facilities that produce less than 150,000 tons of stainless or specialty steel annually will have to comply with an emissions limit of 0.8 pound of particulate matter per ton of steel; all other facilities will be required to meet a particulate matter limit of 0.0052 grains per dry standard cubic foot. A 6-percent opacity limit applies to fugitive emissions from electric furnaces,....