Steel mills generate substantial amounts of by-products. The U.S. government estimates that domestic steel producers generate about 20 million tons of ferrous slag every year.
Global slag output runs somewhere around 360 million tons a year. It all adds up, forming small mountains of bulk raw material that cause environmental problems with dust and highly alkaline leachates.
The traditional solution has been to sell these materials at low unit values. We thought our stiff extrusion technology offered a more sustainable, cost-effective approach to the problem, and began offering it to steel mills in the 1990s, giving them the ability to convert sludge, fines and dust into agglomerated briquettes for feedstock.
In 2014, we joined forces with TMS International, the industry’s largest domestic outsourced service provider, to introduce our technology to U.S. steelmakers. TMS services more than 100 million tons of liquid steel annually and has proven its ability to let its customer run steel while they run everything else.
TMS incorporated Steele stiff extrusion technology into a new service line — EPS, or Extruded Product Services®. EPS is scalable, continuous process engineered to lower raw material costs, one that lets mills unlock the value in their waste streams instead of shipping it off-site.
TMS, like Steele, is finding that its customers are ready for an environmentally sound, cost-effective alternative to piling up by-products. We’re delivering a source of high-quality feedstock and supporting the customer’s sustainability strategy, which has become increasingly important to their customers, stakeholders and communities.
If you’re tired of looking at mountains of by-products and ready to re-think your feedstock supply chain, give us or our friends at TMS International a call. We’ll be glad to show you how we can help you protect and preserve the environment.