Posted on 24 Sep 2008
China Steel Corp, Taiwan's largest steelmaker, will spend NT$2 billion (US$62.56 million) to improve facilities at its four sintering plants to bring dioxin emission levels below a new limit to be enforced from 2010, a senior Kaohsiung city governing official disclosed Tuesday.
Hsiao Yu-Jeng, director of the city government's Environmental Protection Bureau, told reporters that currently nearly 94 per cent of the dioxins detected in the southern port city are emitted by China Steel's sintering plants.
The integrated steel-making plant is 23 per cent owned by the government.
Hsiao said that after holding a series of public hearings, the Kaohsiung City Council decided in June last year that effective from 2010, the ceiling on dioxin emissions will be lowered from the current one nanogram per cubic meter to 0.5 nanogram, and that the Cabinet-level Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) formally endorsed the decision last week.
According to Hsiao, EPA head Stephen Shen and several legislators paid a visit to China Steel recently and met with the company's executives, who admitted that two of the sintering plants are too old and would never be able to meet the new emissions standard.
After a round of negotiations, the EPA head agreed to consider as acceptable an average dioxin emission level of below 0.5 nanogram per cubic meter by the four sintering plants, Hsiao said.
China Steel's executives reciprocated by promising that the company will spend NT$2 billion to improve facilities at its sintering plants in order to keep dioxin emission levels below the new ceiling from 2010.
The function of a sintering plant is to process fine grain raw material into coarse grained iron ore sinter to supply the blast furnace. The plant's furnace is the main source of dioxin emissions.
Dioxins are a group of chemicals known to be carcinogens which can cause birth defects, diabetes, immune system abnormalities and many other adverse health effects if they accumulate in the body in large amounts.
