Air pollution control laws,

regulations and philosophies

Dr. Wesam Al Madhoun

 Us Air pollution laws and regulations

•Most air pollution control engineers works with

permits and also the major facilities

•These permits are authorized by local, state, or

federal authorities, normally, expressed as:

•The emissions of pollutant X from the main

stack factory Y shall not exceed Z pound per
hours
Federal regulations direct the states to require

a permit for each facility that has the

potential to emit 100 tons/ Yr or 25 ton/ Yr of

Hazardous
 Air pollution control philosophies

•The main wish is to have a completely un-polluted

environment at no cost to any one

•The logic is to have appropriately clean

environment with appropriate cost distributed
among industry car owners and other sources of
pollutants
 The four philosophies

The regulations often based on mixture of

philosophies such as:
1- Emission standards
2- Air quality standards
3- Emission taxes
4- Cost- benefit standards
 The emission standard philosophy

•The maximum emissions of different classes will

keep the pollution emission rate at lowest
possibility and each class is required to limit
emissions to this maxima

•So if this philosophy is followed we will have the

cleanest possible air
 Best technology type

•The alkali acts in England followed the Leblanc

process for manufacturing an alkali soda ash Na2
CO3 , HCL as byproduct was emitted of the
smokestack of the plant

•Legislations led to "Alkali inspectors" who their

duty was to regularly inspect all alkali plants and to
find the best technique for minimizing the emission

•Then enforcing the other plants to adopt the best

technology
•The best technology is still widely used specially
in cases where determining the emission rate in
pound per hours would be difficult i.e:

-large gasoline storage tanks

-open burning of garbage and agricultural wastes

•Emission standards is applied to regulate the

emission of pollutants from the chimneys of
industrial plants.

•Regulations limiting the visible emissions are of a

form of emission standard.
All these kinds of emission standards have the same
general idea:

• There is some degree of emission control that it is

practical to impose upon all members of a well-
defined class of emitters and that degree of control
is required of all members of that class
Advantages and disadvantages of emissions
standard

The cost effectiveness of the emission standard

philosophy is bad.

•If the same emission standard were applied for a

specific class of emitters , for both remote
location and in those in industrial densely
populated areas, then for a stringent standard, the
remote plants will make large expenditure to
produce a small reduction in damage to receivers
and hence a small benefit.
•The simplicity of the emission standard philosophy
is excellent, the entire set of regulations consist s of
the permitted emission rates and the description of
the test method to be used to determine whether the
emission standards are being met

•The enforceability of the emission standard

philosophy is excellent, once the standards are set
and tests methods defined, one knows whom to
monitor and for what.
• The flexibility of this philosophy is poor, if a
plant orders pollution control equipment, and the
equipment fails to meet the manufacturers
predicted performance criteria ( and hence the
emission standards) it may take years to replace it.
•The evolutionary ability of this philosophy is
fair, if a new technology makes it possible to
set a lower standard, it can be implemented
for all sources built after a certain date.
-Emission standard philosophy is a ”cleanest
possible air”
-The Air Quality Standard Philosophy is a
“zero-damage”

-What is the relation between threshold values and

the philosophy of The Air Quality Standard
Philosophy?
*The idea of threshold values that which no air
pollution damage would occur.

*The air quality standard philosophy is based on

the assumption that the true situation for most
major air pollutant is the threshold value
situation.
 The U.S air pollution community is trying to do precisely that, by
carrying out the basic air quality standard philosophy of the Clean Air
Act
To apply this philosophy must study the " available dose-response
data and determine the threshold values

National ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) –which are maximum

allowable level of contamination & EPA established such standards for six
major pollutants

The process of setting these standards calls for issuing documents called
"Air Quality Criteria " for such reason the pollutants on this list are
called " Criteria pollutants"
•The states are now attempting to manage air quality to ensure that those
standards will not be exceeded , ever , any where

•In 2000, 25 years after the original deadlines , many of the standards
have not been met in the regions with the most difficult problem. For
the most part we failed to meet the standards because we
underestimate the total emissions, overestimate the efficiency of
control measures, and used optimistic models to predict future air
quality.
 The advantages and disadvantages
of the air quality standards philosophy

*This philosophy cost effectiveness is good but not excellent

*Require some control expenditures for which the damage reduction
benefits are small

No one has found away to write a simple set of regulation based on this
philosophy

*The reason of this complexity is that we are attempting to control the

concentration of pollutants in the ambient air
 Emission Tax Philosophy

-The two philosophies discussed next are not in use to any

significant extent any where in the world, but rather are
ideas that have had theoretical discussion in academic
journals.

-They represent future alternatives.

 >>>
• Laws based on an emission tax philosophy would tax each
emitter of major pollutants according to its emission rate; – e.g.
X cents per pound of pollutant Y for all emitters.

• This tax rate would be set so that most major polluters would
find it more economical to install pollution control equipment
than pay the taxes.
 >>
• Emission taxes have also been proposed in combination with
air quality standard philosophy : in this combination,
emission taxes would act as an added incentive to reduce
emissions to lower levels than those required to meet air
quality standards.

• Air Quality Standard and Emission taxes would work in

parallel.
>>>
Emission Tax is a member of a larger class philosophies called
economic incentives .

The other members of this class are:

- Tax rebates

-Low-interest-rate loans from the government for the

installation of air pollution control equipment.

- Direct public subsides for pollution control .

>>>
The emission tax philosophy assumes that the environment
has natural removal mechanisms for pollutants (with CFCs
as possible exception) and at any particular contaminant
level the environment has a finite , renewable absorptive or
dispersive capability.
 >>>
 Making the decisions whether or not to control the pollution
and what the degree of control should be is a matter of the
internal economics of major emitters would probably result
in a better overall cost effectiveness than is possible with
uniform emission standards.

 Industry has complained about their difficulties with

changing standards ( shooting at a moving target)
 Cost-Benefit Philosophy
 The cost benefit approach assumes that either there are
no thresholds or, if there are, they are low enough that
we cannot afford to have air that clean.

 Then we must accept some amount of air pollution

damage to someone, somewhere.
This philosophy suggests that we attempt to decide in as
rational a manner as possible,

– how much damage we should accept and

– how much we should be willing to spend to reduce

damages to this level.
The idea is illustrated in Figure below :
The ambient air concentration can be reduced

by air pollution control expenditures.

• The control cost goes up steeply as the ambient air

concentration becomes small.

• The sum of the two costs has a Minimum value ,when the
slopes of the two cost curves are equal and opposite
 The figure is great simplification,

 it shows one control cost curve

 One damage cost curve

 And one atmospheric concentration

In reality there is:

 a damage curve for each individual exposed to air pollution

 Control curve for each emitter

 And concentration dimension for each pollutant at each location

 The simple application shown in the figure does not
consider the question :

“” Whose costs? Whose benefits? ‘’

 This approach is frequently criticized by those who say:

 “ You can’t reduce X to monetary term”,

 Where X may be

 human health,

 human life,

 or the quality of a clear sky,

 or air pollution damage to the cathedrals of Europe.

 ‫ البيئة الهوائية‬:‫الفصل الثاني‬
)19( ‫مادة‬
‫ تحدد الوزارة بالتعاون مع الجهات المختصة المقاييس المتعلقة بضبط نسب‬.‫أ‬
.‫ملوثات الهواء التي قد تسبب األذى والضرر للصحة العامة أو الرفاه االجتماعي أو البيئة‬
‫ وعلى المنشآت القائمة‬،‫ على كل منشأة تقام في فلسطين أن تلتزم بهذه المقاييس‬.‫ب‬
.‫تعديل أوضاعها بما يتفق وهذه المقاييس خالل فترة زمنية ال تزيد عن ثالث سنوات‬
The Ministry, in cooperation with the specialized agencies, shall specify
standards to regulate the percentage of pollutants in the air which may
cause harm or damage to public health, social welfare and the
environment;
Each facility, which will be established in Palestine, shall abide to these
standards; every existing facility shall make necessary changes in a
manner that makes it conform to these standards within a period, which
does not exceed three years.
32
 ‫ البيئة الهوائية‬:‫الفصل الثاني‬
)20(‫مادة‬
‫على صاحب المنشأة توفير سبل الحماية الالزمة للعاملين والمجاورين للمنشأة‬
‫تنفيذا لشروط السالمة والصحة المهنية ضد أي تسرب أو انبعاث ألي ملوثات‬
.‫داخل مكان العمل أو خارجه‬
Every facility owner shall provide all means to
ensure the necessary protection for workers and
the neighbors of the facility, in compliance with the
conditions of occupational safety and health,
against any leak or emission of pollutants in or out
the working place.
33
 ‫الفصل الثاني‪ :‬البيئة الهوائية‬
‫مادة (‪)21‬‬
‫يحظر التدخين في وسائل النقل واألماكن العامة المغلقة‪.‬‬

‫‪It is forbidden to smoke in transportation means and‬‬

‫‪closed public areas.‬‬

‫‪34‬‬
 ‫ البيئة الهوائية‬:‫الفصل الثاني‬
)22( ‫مادة‬
‫ال يجوز استخدام آالت أو محركات أو مركبات ينتج عنها عادم يخالف المقاييس‬
.‫المحددة بموجب أحكام هذا القانون‬
.
It shall be prohibited to utilize machines,
engines or vehicles that generate exhaust that
does not comply with the standards specified
in accordance with the provisions of this law.

35
 ‫الفصل الثاني‬
‫البيئة الهوائية‬
‫مادة(‪)23‬‬
‫يحظر إلقاء أو معالجة أو حرق القمامة والمخلفات الصلبة إال في األماكن‬
‫المخصصة لذلك‪ ،‬وفقا ً للشروط المحددة من قبل الوزارة بما يكفل حماية البيئة‪.‬‬

‫‪36‬‬
 ‫الفصل الثاني‬
‫البيئة الهوائية‬
‫مادة(‪)24‬‬
‫تعمل الوزارة على الحد من استنزاف طبقة األوزون وفقا لما نصت عليه‬
‫المعاهدات الدولية التي تلتزم بها فلسطين وذلك باتخاذ اإلجراءات المناسبة فيما‬
‫يتعلق باستيراد أو إنتاج أو استعمال أية مواد كيماوية تسبب ضررا لذلك‪.‬‬

‫‪37‬‬