Environment Our steel punching scrap cycle The raw material we use by far the most of is strip steel, the production of which is also extremely energy and CO2-intensive. Here too, we have a special responsibility and therefore take particular care to ensure that this raw material is recycled correctly. Steel can be fully recycled any number of times without any loss of quality. We therefore consider the handling of waste steel generated during our production process to be extremely important. We follow a multi-recycling approach with respect to steel. Fully automated material logistics system: Since 2018, our steel cutting centre at our site in Austria has been home to a fully automated material logistics system which sorts our waste steel ready for recycling. This sorting system is vital for the recycling process, because we use a range of steels with different compositions and properties. To enable the system to separate the waste steel into different types automatically, we have defined several categories of steel and assigned an ID number to each. These ID numbers enable the type of steel to be identified at every stage of the production process – from the delivery of the material to the manufacturing process and finally the disposal of any waste steel in separate recycling skips. The recycling skips are located right next to the production machines and are labelled with barcodes corresponding to the relevant ID number to ensure that all waste is deposited in the correct skip. As soon as the skips are full, they are transported to the relevant silo using material handling equipment and emptied. The silos in turn have fill-level sensors which automatically alert our recycling partner via an app when the silos are full and ready for collection. Thanks to the high quality of our waste steel, it can be returned directly to the foundries without having to repeat the upstream stages of the recycling process. By using this system, we create a closed-loop cycle for our waste steel, which helps increase the recycled content of the steel used in our manufacturing process and, in turn, reduces the CO2 emissions associated with steel production. With our closed-loop zinc recycling system and sorting system for steel waste, we have systems in place to extract high-quality waste metals from our production processes and make them ready for recycling and reuse. However, a functioning circular economy and recycling system rely on close collaboration between everyone involved, and manufacturers, waste collectors, sorting facilities and recycling infrastructure providers all have to work together. Only then can we capitalise on the synergies and reap the potential benefits. 42 © Copyright by Blum
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