Steel Zero Waste is a project that encompasses different industrial initiatives developed by Feralpi in line with R&D that contributes to continually reducing the environmental footprint.

To do this, it promotes the introduction of innovative circular economy models that could affect the different phases of the value chain. Research activities investigate impact not only within the scope of production, but also the overall effects, and the optimisation of waste materials from other sectors.

Zero Waste Target

With regard to the circular economy, detailed project actions cover the following areas:

• Production: innovative models relating to the supply of resources, and their use in producing and generating waste during the entire product life cycle.

• Production processes: actions targeting the efficient use of resources in production processes, including solutions designed to reduce resources and the energy required, or innovative industrial processes, such as industrial symbiosis processes, whereby waste or by-products from one industry become production elements for another.

• Waste management: solutions characterised by high-level innovation aimed at reducing the generation of waste in production processes and consumption, organising reuse and recycling or energy recovery, with a view to integrating waste management within industrial processes and the economic system, across the different resource supply, production and consumption phases.

The project to reduce environmental impact in this way encompasses a longstanding aim.

Recovery and reuse of waste materials (ZeroWaste)

In modern steel production, business opportunities cannot ignore the need to reduce the environmental impact of production, and increase its relative environmental sustainability.

Not only because legislation is stipulating increasingly stringent parameters to observe regarding emissions, but also because integration with the surrounding community is an opportunity for guaranteeing business continuity and competitiveness in global markets.

The SteelZeroWaste project therefore aims to implement systems and technologies to eliminate steel production waste, and minimise environmental impact due to production itself (reduction in environmental impact). To do this, scope should not just include the production site, but also the overall effects of actions implemented, such as the optimisation of waste materials from other industries, in line with the most advanced circular economy principles.

The project is focused on creating a zero-waste steel production cycle, and improving the environmental impact of the steel industry, even indirectly by facilitating recovery from other sectors.

For this reason the project involves action on different areas of solid and liquid waste materials.