Why are we proud of steel ?
- Steel is the fundamental to achieving a circular economy. It ensures the maximum value of resources through recovery and reuse, re manufacturing and recycling.
- Steel is the most recycle material in the world. Being magnetic, steel is easy and affordable to recover from almost any waste stream.
- The steel industry uses its resources efficiently and produce very little waste. According to the data reported in 2020: 96.3% of steel raw material were converted : 64.9% were converted into steel products, 31.3% were converted into co-products as little as 3.7% became waste.
- About 630 million tones of scrap are recycled every year saving nearly 950 million tones of CO2 annually that would have been emitted from the production of virgin steel
- Over 25 billion tones of steel scrap have been recycled to make new steel since 1900. This has reduced iron ore consumption by around 35 billion tones, as well as cutting coal consumption by 18 billion tones.
- Steel making process gases are used to produce heat and electricity. When process gasses are fully reused they can provide between 60-100% of the plant’s electricity requirements.
- 100% of the steel industry’s co-products can be used. Slag is used in cement, road construction, fertilizer, hydraulic engineering and sea forestation. Process gases are used to produce heat and/or electricity. Emulsion and oils are used as reducing agents. Iron oxide and Zinc are recovered from dust and sludges. chemicals are used as input material for the chemical industry.
- Around 90% of water used in the steel industry is cleaned, cooled and returned to source. Most of the loss is due to evaporation. Water returned to rivers and other sources is often cleaner than when extracted.
- Slag is the highest volume steel industry solid co-product. On average, for the blast furnace route approximately, 400kg of slag producer per tone of crude steel. in the electric arc furnace, around 170kg of slag is produced per tone of crude steel.
- Steel products are durable and simply last a long time. the average life of steel products is approximately 40 years. In application with a long service life, such as building or infrastructure, we will need to wait up to 100 years or more to recycle, in this case of steel packaging the time between production and recycling can be just a few weeks; in this case of vehicles this may be up to 15-20 years.
- Steel’s durability enables many products to be reused at the end of their life. Reusing a steel product extends its product life cycle and therefore conserves resources. Many steel companies and steel product manufactures are increasingly designing products for reuse.
- Steel products can be easily be remanufactured, restoring use products to like-new condition, such as automotive engines and wind turbines.
- Air quality control is major priority of the steel industry.
- By 2050 steel use id projected to increase by around 20%compared to present levels in order to meet the need of our growing population.
Melsteel offers a wide range of quality mild steel products and custom steel fabrication to suit any steel project. Give us a call on 03 8794 3100 and see how we can help you get your steel project started today. You can download our latest steel prices here.
