Metal manufacturing environmental regulations

Your metal production and processing business may need a permit, licence, authorisation or exemption to prevent your activities from causing pollution or harming human health. Metal production and processing includes manufacturing ferrous, non-ferrous and precious metals and alloys; metal forming processes; bar, wire and tube drawing; and metal casting.

Metal production and processing businesses can have a number of impacts on the environment, including:

• air pollution from scrap metal processing, furnace fumes, dust emissions, mould production, and casting and cooling processes
• land contamination from accidental oil and chemical spills, or past use of the site
• noise pollution from materials handling, rolling mills, billet casting, air extraction equipment and vehicles
• waste disposal such as off-cuts, refractories, slags, sludges, fluxes and lubricating fluids
• water discharges including contaminated water from cooling and wet scrubbing processes, cleaning and testing

This guide will help you check if your business needs a pollution prevention and control (PPC) permit, waste management licence, registered exemption or other environmental authorisation, such as a trade effluent consent, radioactive substance registration or authorisation or hazardous waste pre-notification.

You can be fined or even sent to prison if you don't have the correct permit, licence, authorisation or exemption.