How UK scrap yards will lead the way to a cleaner world.
By Tim Robson, Director of Account Management & Partnerships at B4B Payments
In an unlikely alliance that unites the practical with the theoretical, UK scrap yards find themselves at the forefront of a movement that is potentially both virtuous and commercial.
We’ve long known that scrap yards are one of the best exemplars of the circular economy. They take what has been mined, produced, and become obsolete, strip it down, and then return it to be used again.
Your old car, for instance.
Cars are full of various metals like steel or copper that can be reused once they go through the scrapping process. Clearly, recycling is infinitely better, not to say cheaper, than mining fresh iron and coal to create new steel and, crucially, much cleaner and better for the environment.
By volume, one of the world’s more polluting industries is traditional blast furnace steel production which – whilst necessary for a steel-hungry world – also leaves a very heavy environmental footprint (approx 7% of all global greenhouse emissions)
Reducing this heavy environmental cost of primary steel production would be a clear win in decarbonising the world. Luckily, there is however another steel-making method which utilises electric arc furnace (EAF) technology. EAF has only one-third of the environmental impact of blast steel production and – crucially – uses recycled steel as its major input.
Earlier this year, there was a blast furnace of publicity in the UK when Tata Steel in South Wales decided to close its last remaining blast furnace and move to Electric Arc Furnace technology. British Steel is also changing its processes to EAF technology at its plants in Teesside and Scunthorpe.
This will be a great step ahead for sustainability, and one concomitant effect is that there will be a domestic market for UK recycled steel, 80% of which is currently exported to destinations such as Turkey, India, and Egypt.
If the UK can grow its EAF steel-making capacity, then scrap yards will be at the forefront of providing the raw materials. Instead of exporting scrap steel, the impetus could switch to domestic sales which also reduces the overall carbon footprint of the industry as less is shipped abroad.
A few caveats.
Price
“The price has to be right, of course. But with fresh demand being created locally, UK scrap yards are in the ideal place to take advantage of this new market.” — Tim Robson, Director of Account Management & Partnerships at B4B Payments
Quality
Previously, there have been arguments about the quality of reclaimed steel and thus limitations in its usage. However, with more advanced processes to clean the scrapped metals and the ability to vary the components within an electric arc furnace, this gap can be closed.
Job Losses
EAF technology employs fewer people than traditional blast furnaces. Workers in the steel industry will be displaced.
So, the EAF conversion is a challenge to UK plc and both a challenge and an opportunity for UK scrap yards. Let’s see how this plays out. The big winner, though, should be the environment.
Learn more about how Bread4Scrap supports the recycling industry