Recycling and recirculation
There are not many products in the world which can be recycled again and again. Steel is one of the exceptions. Its repeated processing is much less energy demanding than its primary production. Road guardrails today can become spoons tomorrow, a carriage wheel can be made into a fence. This helps us conserve natural resources. We also continue to refine steel production to minimise its impact on the environment. By recycling one ton of steel we save approximately 1,100 kg of iron ore, 630 kg of coal and 55 kg of limestone. In steel works, approximately one third of all metal-bearing charges are scrap steel.
In addition to steel, we also recycle a wide range of industrial production by-products. Some of these products are then certified and used; predominantly in construction.
A large quantity of dust emissions are generated during iron and steel production. Modern emission reduction technologies allow us to effectively capture more than 99% of these dust emissions. Captured steel foundry dust has a composition similar to feedstock, and is suitable for further use in production. In total, we recycle approximately 95% of all captured steel foundry dust. The rest is treated as waste. This usage of steel foundry dust is environmentally friendly and it preserves non-renewable mineral resources.
We use approximately 200 million m³ of water every year for steel production. We take only about 14 million m³ from surface sources, the rest is renewed using a system of recirculation and reuse.
Separating waste into combustible components of municipal waste is an additional step we take towards preserving the natural environment. Use of PALOZO fuel, which is made from separated municipal waste, eliminates the necessity of burning other natural resources and spending more energy to on resource extraction.