Steel aims to boost its potential in the circular economy

On my train journey from London to Brussels for the World Steel Association Circular Economy Conference, out of the window I watched the landscape change from the English to the French and finally to the Belgian.  Jarring with the natural beauty of all three countries was one shared element -- the rusty, abandoned steel rails at the side of the gleaming  tracks.

Why not ensure a second life for this material? But what are we talking about precisely?

The Circular Economy Conference aimed to address questions about how materials are used and how the planet’s health might be improved by changing business models. In a world where economic growth has been driven by uncontrolled use of resources we have now reached a point where it is crucial to stop and assess how we innovate.

“We are in the 21^st century, we don’t have the luxury to think short term,” Co-Chair UN International Resource Panel Janez Potocnik said at the event.

Several speakers addressed the finite raw materials issue from different angles, suggesting new ways of implementing change while uprooting the old linear economy based on a take-make-dispose model. Europe is still majorly dependent on imported raw materials for up to 90% of its industrial production according to 2014 European Commission data.  The circular economy model instead focuses on reducing raw resource extraction, re-using available materials, re-manufacturing and recycling, preventing waste and pollution by extending the lifespan of metals, alloys and polymers.

Under the spotlight, steel is deemed to be among the materials that can most effectively lend themselves to use in a circular economy.

“Steel is circular and permanent,” General Director of European Steel Association Eurofer Axel Eggert said.

The numbers speak louder than words: steel production makes full use (up to 97.6%) of the raw materials extracted for its production (i.e. metallurgical coal, iron ore etc.) converting the rest into by-products used in various industries, from cosmetic to fertilizers, according to worldsteel data. On the other hand, today 78% of used steel ends up being recycled instead of being re-purposed, and 40% of this is waste produced by the construction industry alone, according to Arup, a London-based multinational construction and design consultancy. Hence the need for closing the steel lifespan cycle, optimizing steel products by changing their design so that right from their inception they can be made ready  to be repurposed and re-absorbed in the value chain.

The greatest challenge is to persuade manufacturers to adopt the circular business model. This would entail collecting their used products, disassembling their components and reutilizing the materials for a new item. Technical and operational hurdles would however arise for the reverse logistics necessary to allow steel to be correctly handled and disassembled from the original product, protected and identified with the final aim of re-utilizing it before it goes to waste or to scrap.

“Recycling in itself is a rather demanding process and we don’t have to necessarily go there -- the issue is that so much has been done at the legislative level to promote recycling while there is a long way to go to encourage businesses to embrace remanufacturing,” worldsteel  Director General Edwin Basson said.

Following on from this new approach, the collective effort needs to be supported by “new policies that need to be implemented across all levels of businesses,” Eurofer’s Eggert said.

And with these new challenges in mind, I boarded on my train back to London in the expectation that soon enough those discarded steel rails would  have their own return ticket.