Steel Construction Vol 40 No 4 - Metal Cladding and Light Steel Frame

SAISC innovation “POT” or are we just Green? Is the steel industry going to By Paolo Trinchero, Chief Executive Officer, SAISC Farmers around the Ilva steel works in Italy are using Cannabis to help clean up polluted soils in the region. The extraordinary ability of the plant to not only survive in pollution-hit soils, but also to clean them, was discovered in the early 1990s by agriculturalists carrying out experiments in the radioactive earth around Chernobyl, Ukraine. As you all know by now Steel is a “green” material. It is 100 % recyclable and has no competition when it comes to its utility and reusability. also to clean them, was discovered in the early 1990s by agriculturalists carrying out experiments in the radioactive earth around Chernobyl, Ukraine. Manufactured from the most abundant element on earth, iron, steel can be recycled or reused endlessly without detriment to its properties. This unique characteristic gives all steel a high value at all stages of its life cycle. The recovery infrastructure for steel recycling is highly developed and highly efficient, and has been in place for decades. The plant is very effective at removing pollutants and as a result there are now around 100 farmers around the Ilva plant who are experimenting with the crop. Energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions from steelmaking have been reduced by 50% over the past 40 years and work is underway to reduce this further. By-products from iron and steel-making, including sludges, slags and dust, are beneficially used by the construction industry in a range of products including roadstone, lightweight aggregate and as cementitious material used as a substitute for Portland cement. We came across a very interesting series of articles on how to clean up environments that have been exposed to heavy industry. Farmers around the Ilva steel works in Italy are using Cannabis to help clean up polluted soils in the region. The extraordinary ability of the plant to not only survive in pollution-hit soils, but Don’t get too excited however as the farmers are growing a legal variety of the Cannabis Sativa plant which contains extremely low-levels of the psychoactive compound THC. While this makes the plants useless for recreational smoking, they still have plenty of more interesting uses such as producing hemp fibres, biofuels, animal feed and insulation. A local building company, Vilbrotek, is already experimenting making materials from hemp, while one of two hemp processing plants in Italy is in Taranto. The correct term is phyto-remediation which is the direct use of green plants and their associated microorganisms to stabilize or reduce contamination in soils, sludges, sediments, surface water, or ground water. First tested actively at waste sites in the early 1990s, phytoremediation has been tested at more than 200 sites around the world. Because it is a natural process, phytoremediation can be an effective remediation method at a variety of sites and on numerous contaminants. However, sites with low concentrations of contaminants over large cleanup areas and at shallow depths present especially favorable conditions for phytoremediation. Environmental concerns are becoming increasingly important, this is illustrated by the impact it has had on the business rescue of the troubled Evraz-Highveld Steel. Some Mills have followed the opposite approach and have spent extensive amounts of money remediating polluted land and ensuring that the environment is cleaned up. The recent introduction of carbon taxes illustrates the importance of environmental concerns across the supply chain. From an energy perspective many companies have been reducing their energy consumption through the use of solar water heaters and solar PV panels. Companies have been collecting rainwater to cleaning vehicles and some have been recycling water in their production processes. We have a number of fabricators that have been keen environmentalists over many years. What if we could co-ordinate our efforts across the industry to show that we not only work with a material that can be recycled but we are working together to limit our environmental footprint. We welcome articles or new snippets from our members on how they are tackling environmental issues in order to foster innovation and improve our energy efficiency. Steel Construction Vol. 40 No. 4 2016 33

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