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Top 10 Green Things About Steel
St Patrick’s Day is known as the green holiday,
when parades fill the streets, people fill the pubs,
rivers are dyed green and shamrocks abound. Perhaps
because of its proximity to the beginning of spring
or images of the green hills of Ireland where Saint
Patrick helped convert the island nation to Christianity,
March 17th has been an important celebration of the
oft overlooked color.
Fortunately, green has made a push forward in the new
age of environmental awareness. The quest for sustainability
has created a new implication for the word and the North
American steel industry is no exception. The new steel
industry of today has embraced the notion of sustainability
in a number of ways. It has moved from the stereotypical
resource consuming production and heavy waste of the
industrial revolution into an era of self consciousness
and positive reform. The industry is committed to doing
its part to improve land, air, and water quality. Through
innovative approaches, the North American steel industry
has been working hard to ensure a better, safer environment
and a more complete understanding of the word “green”
well into the future.
The top ten green things about steel are:
1. Steel is 100% recyclable and today’s steel,
on average, contains 75% of old scrap. From the car
to the grill to the kitchen sink, steel can be melted
down again and again without losing its quality. Steel
scrap is our largest raw material by tonnage.
2. Almost all of the water used in the steel making
process is recycled and filtered up to 100 times before
discharge, at which point it exits cleaner than when
it entered the mill.
3. Scrap, both in the steel mill and at manufacturing
plants where steel is shaped and cut, are always sent
back and recycled to make a new batch of steel. And
gases produced in the steelmaking process are recycled
into the system to heat up the furnace, reducing the
need for additional energy.
4. Steel companies support communities with their involvement
in environmental issue groups and local programs and
through public education initiatives.
5. New technologies are being researched at MIT and
the University of Utah that may allow us to produce
iron, a major element in steel, without the emission
of carbon dioxide.
6. American steelmakers lead the way in energy efficiency
and emissions reductions. The industry is 240% ahead
of the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas emissions goal
and is developing innovative technologies to continue
setting new benchmarks. According to the US EPA, the
steel industry is the only major industry that has reduced
its CO2 at the same time as increasing its production
since the Kyoto base year of 1990.
7. Continuously reinforced concrete roadways are structurally
supported by steel rebars and help to improve fuel efficiency
in large vehicles.
8. Steel cans protect food in the same way as your
grandmother protected food from her garden, locking
the nutritional benefits in, without the use of refrigeration.
This lack of refrigeration requirement significantly
reduces CO2 production.
9. Steel utility poles are light, strong, and have
a long service life. They do not require chemical preservatives
like their counterparts, and pose no hazardous waste
disposal concerns, as they are fully recyclable.
10. The North American steel industry is hard at work
restoring former steel plants, called Brownfield sites.
In some cases small commercial and retail stores are
put in place, in others the land is kept as a wildlife
habitat and opened to school tours
Source: Structural Building
Components, March 15, 2008
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