Recycling in the Steel Industry
Sources of Scrap | Steel Plant Scraps | Steel Product Lifespans | Scrap Availability
Steel is one of the world's most recycled products. In fact, it is 100 percent recyclable - which means its life cycle is potentially continuous. Steel scrap is a necessary component in the production of new steel.
The Australian steel industry has always been a good recycler. But in recent years, with growing community awareness of the benefits of recycling, the industry has made even stronger moves to reuse as much steel as possible.
Sources of Scrap
Although all steel can be potentially recycled, some is - for all practical purposes - unavailable. This includes steel used in permanent public works and buildings, and steel which wears away in such applications as grinding balls and liners for crushers.
However, the great majority of steel is available for reuse. It comes from a variety of sources, including scrap generated within steel plants (known as home scrap); off-cuts generated by manufacturers (prompt industrial scrap); and steel locked up in items that have come to the end of their useful lives (obsolete scrap).
In Australia, about 65 percent of steel available for recycling goes back into the making of new steel. Each year, scrap merchants process about 1.9 million tonnes of ferrous scrap. Steel scrap is not a uniform commodity and users have different requirements, depending on the nature of their plant and the characteristics of the products they make. Regardless, the scrap needs to undergo a certain amount of processing. This varies according to the chemical composition and size of the scrap. Potential hazards such as closed containers also need to be removed.
At our integrated steel plant in Port Kembla, steel scrap makes up about 17 to 20 percent of the material that goes into the basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS) furnace. As well as providing a source of feed, scrap is used to control the temperature generated by the chemical reactions in the BOS process.
Steel Plant Scraps
In addition to the scrap collected by merchants, the Australian steel industry itself generates about one million tonnes each year. Some of this is recovered as slab, billet and bloom off-cuts, and from slag which is a by-product during the steelmaking process.
The rest is residue from the rolling mill process and includes off-cuts and material rejected under quality inspection procedures. BlueScope Steel's operations produce about 82 per cent of Australia's crude steel. The scrap produced, together with limited quantities of post-industrial scrap, is recycled.
Steel Product Lifespans
The following table gives some examples of the average lives of items made mainly from steel:
 | ITEMS MANUFACTURED FROM STEEL | YEARS |  |
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The factors that determine the extent to which steel is recycled are:
- The specifications of the final product;
- The ability of the recycled product to perform as a substitute;
- The costs of collection and smelting (which include energy, labour and capital costs); and
- Technical limitations.
Scrap Availability
The approximate 35 percent of steel scrap currently not recycled in Australia is made up of tin can scrap, wire and reinforcing mesh, remote obsolete mining plant and structures, and unrecovered foundation and heavy reinforced steel. The bulk of scrap that is recycled is generated in mainland eastern states. This is because of the greater potential supplies and the lower collection and transport costs arising from higher densities of population and industries.
References
Industry Commission, Recycling Report No 6 Volume II: Recycling of Products, Australian Government Publishing Service Canberra, 22 February 1991.
Submission by BlueScope Steel to the Joint Select Committee Upon Waste Management, Steel Recycling in Australia, March 1993.
International Iron and Steel Institute, "World Steel in Figures", 2006.
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