U.S. EPA Region 5 issued a Consent Agreement and Final Order (CAFO) to Summit Processors (Summit), in which the company will pay a penalty of $7,000 to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act (CAA). EPA alleged that Summit operated a secondary aluminum processing sweat furnace without either installing and properly operating an afterburner to control emissions of dioxin and furans (d/f) or conducting emissions testing to ensure that d/f emissions from the sweat furnace were below limits established in 40 CFR Part 63 Subpart RRR. The sweat furnace has been permanently shut down.
The CAFO also resolves allegations that Summit accepted for recycling small appliances, such as refrigerators and room air conditioners, and motor vehicle air conditioners (MVACs) that contained or once contained ozone-depleting refrigerants, without either recovering the refrigerant from the appliances and MVACs or verifying that the refrigerant had been properly recovered prior to sale to Summit, in violation of regulations found at 40 CFR 82.156. EPA issued a Finding of Violation to Summit on January 17, 2013. Summit will either obtain refrigerant recovery equipment and to properly recover the refrigerant from appliances it accepts for scrap recycling at its East Alton, Illinois facility, or to verify that the refrigerant has been recovered properly prior to delivery to Summit.