Degree of consensus reached

The eonelusions of the work were agreed at the final plenary meeting in October 2003 and a high level of eonsensus was reached. The industry expressed one concern on the dioxin issue, as expressed in detail in Seetion 5. 2. Besides this concern, there was full agreement on all the BAT eonelusions as presented in this doeument. 

The main issues of diseussion at the final meeting concerned the techniques for the collection and treatment of off-gas, the minimisation of fugitive emissions, noise reduction, the role of enviromnental considerations in teehnieal ehoiees and the BAT associated emission levels. For some proeesses, mainly in the field of non-ferrous metal melting, the information was ineomplete and therefore no BAT AEL eould be agreed. During the meeting, there was little diseussion on the teehniques that are speeifie for non-ferrous foundries, partially due to the absenee of industry experts in this field. 

The issue about whether enviromnental eonsiderations play a detrmining role in the basic choice of melting fiimaees and moulding methods, as formulated in Chapter 4 of the dociunent, was earefully eonsidered. There was a general agreement that these choices are complex and should be based on teehnieal reasons and market eonsiderations, on a case-by-case basis. Therefore the issue was not selected as BAT. 

The diseussions on the treatment of off-gases eoneluded with an agreement that for most operations in ferrous foundries both dry systems and well-performing wet systems are BAT. The assoeiated emission levels were based on the information available in the dociunent. 

Coneeming the reduetion of fugitive emissions and noise, there was some discussion on the presentation of the topies and the level of detail to be given in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5. There was a general agreement not to eonelude on a speeifie level of noise which could be associated with BAT. 

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