[Report 1964] / Medical Officer of Health, Smethwick County Borough.

  • Smethwick (Worcestershire, England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1964
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1964] / Medical Officer of Health, Smethwick County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (3) Non-Ferrous Casting Plant: Emission of fumes from a pot-melting plant. (4) Cycle Factory: Following complaints of the deposit of solid particles from the steel chimney stacks serving two economic type boilers it was established that this was due to the formation of acid smut on the internal surfaces of the steel stacks. (5) Strip Rolling Mills: Acid smut emis¬ sions. (6) Laundry: The boiler plant at this Laundry has given trouble due to ex¬ cessive smoke emissions over a long period of time. (7) Laundry: A nuisance from the deposi¬ tion of solid matters was experienced from the tube boiler at this Laundry. (8) Confectionery Factory: Complaints of the emission of dark smoke from the chimney serving the solid fuel fired vertical boiler were made. (9) Ferrous Metal Foundry: Complaints were made from time to time of the deposition of wet solid matter from the water-operated dust arrestation plant. This takes place when there is imbalance of water pressures, and the resulting nuisance is serious and widespread. (10) Ferrous Metal Foundry: The sufficiency of the plant for treating exhaust gases from the Foundry to remove solid matter was found to be inadequate. (11) Enaniel Manufacturers: Continued complaints were made of the emission of fluorides from the frit kilns at these Works. Advice was given re the control of oil atomisation plant. Thechinuiey was raised to effect adequate dis¬ persal of the waste gases. Following consultations with the Oil Company and their Consultant Engineer, the two chimney stacks were cladded with aluminium Two metal chimney stacks were replaced and were both aluminium cladded. A new oil-fired boiler plant was in¬ stalled. The Company, on my advice, decided to have the chim¬ ney cladded with aluminium. This is now an entirely automatically- operated plant. A cyclone was installed to remove solid particles from the waste gases and is operating at 85 % efficiency. Advice was given re stoking operations. Following representations, a closer watch was made on the operation of this plant. To minimise the serious nuisance that occurs on failure, a chemical flocculator was added to the water to facilitate the sedimentation of solid matter. At the same time, it was noticed that the spark arrestingequipmenttothe cold blast cupolas had deteriorated badly. Work to remedy this was pending at the end of the year. During the year, two further bat¬ teries of plate type dust arrestors were added to the existing ventila¬ ting system. The District Alkali, etc. Works Inspector was consulted and he visited the Works with my Air Pollution Officer. A recommenda¬ tion was made that the chimney stacks should be increased to a height of 120 ft. The Management, however, are experimenting with the removal of fluorides im¬ mediately after production and to this end a pilot plant has been in¬ stalled. Research on this particular problem is still continuing.