By:Ryan Glover

As a manufacturer of equipment for business and industry that sells to the Ontario market, it is important to be aware of the legal responsibilities imposed upon your customers when they purchase your equipment. The province of Ontario requires that all new and existing equipment or structures that emit substances into the atmosphere have a Certificate of Approval for Air (CofA; Section 9 of the Environmental Protection Act). The Certificate is a document that quantifies the impacts of atmospheric emissions for a facility, and the individual equipment involved in the emissions. These can include obvious substances such as mercury and lead but also common pollutants such as particulate (PM) and oxides of nitrogen (NOx) which are emitted from natural gas-fired devices such as boilers and comfort heaters. If you are unsure whether your device emits substances to the atmosphere, please call us for guidance. The CofA is a legal requirement and the province employs provincial officers to investigate and audit businesses across the province to determine if their equipment holds the proper permit. The requirement for an emission permit also extends to control devices such as filters, baghouses, scrubbers or other similar mechanisms. In addition, the emission need not be directly to the outdoor environment but may occur internally, within a manufacturing facility, for example. Although such internal emissions may meet OH&S standards, its indirect emission to the outside (via the facility air handling system) will still require a CofA (or an amendment to an existing CofA if a facility already has one).

AirZone specializes in obtaining CofAs for industries. Our experience with the Ministry of the Environment, provincial officers and the CofA application process can be of value to equipment manufacturers. It is important to make a client aware that a new piece of equipment requires a CofA that will legally permit the atmospheric emissions from the device when in operation. In the past, AirZone has dealt with businesses that were misinformed by equipment vendors and later suffered scrutiny and lost income through the auditing processes of the Ministry of the Environment. Consequently, those vendors lost potential sales and word-of-mouth advertising.

AirZone can help you serve your clients better and allow them to prepare their CofA. Please give us a call or visit us on the web (www.airzoneone.com) to learn more about CofA requirements and AirZones expertise.

This is an AirZOne, Inc. information bulletin provided as a free service to our contacts in the industry.