WRITTEN QUESTION E-0985/01

by Paul Lannoye (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(30 March 2001)

Subject: Dioxin and furane emissions from ore sintering plants

The answers given by Michel Forêt, Minister for the Environment of the Walloon Region to two parliamentary questions from Xavier Desgain, Member of the Walloon Regional Parliament, on 24 November 1999 and 20 June 2000, reveal that the ISSeP (Public Service Scientific Institute) signed an agreement on 27 March 1998 with the Land Environment Office (LUA) of North-Rhine-Westphalia for updating EU dioxin emissions inventories. The work carried out under this agreement is, via the LUA, 50 % funded by DG XI, which apparently proposed in particular that measurements be taken of dioxin emissions from two ore sintering plants, at Liège and Charleroi. Information from unofficial sources indicates that the results of the measurements are alarming: 4-7 ng TEQ dioxin/Nm3 for Charleroi and 0,6-0,8 ng TEQ dioxin/Nm3 for Liège.

1. Can the Commission confirm these results?

2. Have measurements of this type also been taken at ore sintering plants and other iron and steel installations in other Member States? If so, can the Commission provide the results of those measurements?

3. What steps does the Commission plan to take to reduce dioxin emissions from such installations, which, given the concentrations and volumes of gas recorded, are apparently far higher than those from household waste incineration plants?

Answer given by Mrs Wallström on behalf of the Commission

(7 June 2001)

1. The European Dioxin Emission Inventory Stage II was prepared by the North Rhine Westphalia State Environment Agency on behalf of the Commission and was finalised in December 2000. The report includes, among other results, the results of Dioxin measurements conducted in iron ore sintering plants in the Walloon part of Belgium (Liège and Charleroi): stack emissions were measured to be 0,7 (range 0,6-0,8) for the Liège plant and 6,8 (range 5,2-9,8) nanogramme (ng) I toxic equivalents per cubic metre (TEQ/m3) for the Charleroi plant.

2. No dioxin emission measurements have been conducted at iron ore sintering plants in other Member States. However, concerning the Iron and Steel Industry, measurement programs were carried out in iron/steel foundries (cold wind cupola furnaces) in Germany and in Electric Arc Furnaces steel plants in Greece and in Portugal. The final report of this project will be soon available on the Community Dioxin web page: http://europa.eu.int/comm/environment/dioxin/index.htm

3. The Commission is in the process of developing a Community Strategy for Dioxins and polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). Several actions that are foreseen in this future strategy to reduce the Dioxin contamination of the environment are focused on sectors with a Dioxin emission potential such as the Iron and Steel Industry.

Given the fact that there is considerable variance of emissions between the iron ore sintering installations and since a lot of data from several Member States are still missing, the Commission considers to:

- carry out Dioxin emission measurements at iron ore sintering plants still not tested in order to be able to decide whether immediate actions for reduction of emissions would be necessary;

- promote the use of Best Available Dioxin reduction Techniques in the iron and steel industry; polychlorinated dibenzo-p-Dioxins/polychlorinated dibenzofurons (PCDD/F) emissions from sintering plants may be reduced considerably by primary measures (optimisation regarding strand speed, chloride input, bed height, millscale oil content, ). The Commission will help to spread this knowledge to the respective contacts in the Iron and Steel industry.