Recycling Propels the Circular Economy

Our end-to-end operations exemplify efficiency and the advantages of a circular economy. Recycled end-of-life materials from individuals, commercial companies and scrap yards along with pre-consumer scrap from manufacturing facilities are collected and processed at our recycling facilities to feed our steel mills, where we melt scrap into new steel. This new material feeds our fabrication sites to provide finished products to our customers, from which scrap returns to recycling—forming a completely closed-loop system.

As we make and circulate new products, we leverage steel’s ability to be recycled infinitely without losing its inherent properties. Our unique production approach also extends to logistics. Wherever our trucks go, we strive to ensure they always carry a load and never travel empty. This complementary focus on minimizing virgin material use, reducing waste and increasing operating efficiency defines our approach to manufacturing.

While we significantly reduce the need for sourcing virgin raw materials, our shredding and scrap recycling processes reduce waste by separating ferrous material we use from nonferrous metals like copper, brass and aluminum that can be remade into new products used in buildings, automobiles, airplanes and more.

We also recycle other products and byproducts of our operations back into other production processes. For example, we sell steel slag to construction companies for use as a base material in highways, asphalt and other products. And we send approximately 99% of EAF baghouse dust, collected from filtered air from our furnaces, to recyclers who extract zinc and other valuable metals to create products such as paint, tire rubber and fertilizers. This focus on recyclability helps to create sustainable materials while avoiding the mining and extraction of virgin raw materials.