Newsletter
STATIONARY SOURCE DIOXIN EMISSIONS STANDARDS AN-NOUNCED
On 2 January 2006, the Environmental Protec-tion Administration (EPA) announced the Di-oxin Emissions Standards for Stationary Pollu-tion Sources, which cover dioxin emissions from all stationary pollution sources, including both existing and new facilities. The EPA had pre-viously introduced industry-specific dioxin emission controls for waste incinerators (in-cluding medium and small incinerators), steel-making industry electric arc furnaces, steel in-dustry ore-sintering plants, and steel industry fly ash melting facilities; these controls already cover 98% of dioxin emissions. The new Stan-dards introduce controls for stationary pollution sources that emit dioxins at lower concentrations and in smaller quantities, such as non-ferrous-metals smelting plants, papermak-ing plants, and cement kilns. The relevant en-terprises must engage qualified inspection en-terprises to measure whether their emissions comply with the Standards, and must bring their emissions into compliance. Noncompliant en-terprises will be subject to administrative fines of NT$100,000 to NT$1 million.
To take account of current conditions in Taiwan, the Standards distinguish between new and ex-isting pollution sources. For new facilities, the maximum permitted level of dioxin emissions is 0.5ng-TEQ/Nm³, with effect from 2 January 2006. For existing facilities, controls will be introduced in two stages, with maximum emis-sions set at 2ng-TEQ/Nm³ from 1 January 2007, and 1ng-TEQ/Nm³ from 1 January 2008.