Alcoa bids to increase hydrogen chloride emissions limit

ALCOA, which operates Australia’s largest aluminium recycling plant at Yennora, says it is not planning to increase hydrogen chloride emissions, only its emissions limit.

It is presently limited to releasing an average of 50mg/cm of the gas each hour from its rotary furnace - a limit imposed by the Land and Environment Court in 2006 - but the company has asked Holroyd Council to double that limit.

It says that because emissions from the furnace are unpredictable, it needs the higher limit to avoid breaching the 50mg/cm average, which the Office of Environment and Heritage records show it did twice in 2010.

“When averaged over one hour, rather than over the four-hour cycle, there will occasionally be spikes above 50mg per cubic metre, depending on the contaminants in the scrap aluminium and where in the melting cycle the one hour sample is taken,” a company spokeswoman said.

“The request to change the emission limit averaged over one hour to 100mg/cubic metre is to ensure compliance across the four-hour melting cycle - it is not a request to increase emissions.”

The increase has been approved by the office and is in line with state regulations.

Emissions are expected to stay at the reported 2009-10 level of 14,000kg a year.

Former Holroyd mayor and mathematician John Brodie is not convinced that the present limit is insufficient.

He says it can already accommodate spikes in emissions - an argument councillor Ross Grove described as “fearmongering” at the last council meeting.

Council will decide on the matter after a report is returned in the coming weeks, although Cr John Perry is content to let the Land and Environment Court decide.

“Alcoa bypassed council to get approval in the first place and they should go back to the court and get their ruling on it,” he said.