Tata Steel has made great strides in its effort to reduce the use of natural resources per tonne of steel manufactured by it. The Company has reduced raw material consumption from a level of 5 t/tss to nearly 3 t/tss in the last 12 years.
Tata Steel India
Steel is 100% recyclable. However, the current rise in demand cannot be met by recycling steel alone. Hence, recycling both steel and iron ore is required in order to meet this demand. The manufacturing process utilises raw materials such as minerals and semi-processed materials. Tata Steel receives its raw materials from its captive mines and collieries in the states of Jharkhand and Orissa. The only waste material from external sources that is sometimes used by Tata Steel is the iron or steel scrap purchased from the market and used in the steel melting shops.
pecific Raw Material Comsumption ( t/tcs)
Tata Steel Europe
Committed to conserving all raw materials, particularly those that are non-renewable, processes at TSE have been refined over many years to ensure optimum consumption of available resources. This is a positive step towards creating a sustainable environment, in addition to being commercially profitable. Systems such as briquetting have been advantageously utilised at manufacturing facilities to enable re-circulation of any residue materials that contain valuable components, within processes.
NatSteel Holdings
At NSH the usage of oxygen had increased temporarily with the installation of the Virtual Lancing Burner (VLB) but after the system stabilised, the consumption rate was effectively controlled and improved. The raw material usage per tonne of billets is generally constant.
Two initiatives taken by NSH in optimising raw material usage are:
- Minimising remnant generation in Rolling Mill by tailoring billet lengths to diameter and lengths of bars produced.
- Minimising scrap generation in Downstream through material optimisation and second order recycling of remnants from both Rolling Mill & CAB.
