The recovery of waste in production processes, thanks to the very high recyclability of steel, allows the steel industry to rightfully enter the virtuous circle of the circular economya fundamental step to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 according to the EU agenda. Recycling can be repeated infinite times without losing any of the original properties. This product is therefore never consumed, but continuously transformed and this makes it a permanent material, a concept at the basis of the circular economy. Steel produced from recycled material such as machinery, vehicles, construction and packaging is in every way similar to “new”. Furthermore, since electricity is used for this transformation, it is also a very environmentally friendly product.
According to the Research Office of Siderwebthe recycling of metals – and steel in particular – represents not only a means of acquiring a raw material for steel production, but also allows you to save natural resources. Furthermore, the production of steel, using iron scrap, consumes 74 percent less energy, 90 percent less “virgin” raw materials and 40 percent less water than the production of steel with an integral cycle. This is also why in Europe We are witnessing a progressive replacement of blast furnaces with electric furnaces, with a greater demand for scrap which fuels pressure on prices and risks reducing the sector’s margins and competitiveness. Scrap has become increasingly rare on the market also due to massive exports to non-EU countries.
This happens because such ferrous waste, despite being fundamental for the circular economy and therefore for decarbonisation, as mentioned, does not fall within the category of strategic materials. Turkey is the main export destination. This nation has a strong electro-steel vocation so it buys it in large quantities and at the end of the cycle resells it to Europe. «We cannot have materials taken away by third countries that have no idea what circular economy means and from which we are then forced to buy them back. The Italian steel industry has set itself the deadline for producing totally green steel in 2030, but it is necessary that the resources useful for the ecological change are somehow protected within the Union. If Brussels does not intervene, it is a difficult deadline to reach” says a PanoramaGiuseppe Pasinipatron of Feralpiamong the main steel producers in Europe, specialized in the production of steels intended for both construction and special applications which find their use in particular in mechanics.
Pasini provides some numbers that give a measure of how urgent the problem of stemming the exports of this raw material is. «Europe sends 20 million tons of scrap abroad every year, more than Italy consumes, of which 60 percent goes to Türkiye. The electric furnaces of Italian steel mills use around 20 million tonnes of scrap every year to produce steel. Of these only 14 are Italian scrap, all the rest – or approximately 6 million tons per year – is imported. Yet, from Italy we export 700 thousand tons, a quantity that has tripled in the space of five years.” The sector has exerted strong pressure to ensure that scrap is considered strategic and remains within the borders of the EU, but as Pasini underlines, “until now the Commission has not responded to this request”. Could tariffs help? “It’s difficult to talk about tariffs in Europe,” he continues Pasini «but exporters could be forced to sell only to those countries that have demonstrated that they have, like European producers, adequate facilities to receive the scrap and melt it without emissions. Structures that know how to treat ferrous scrap as we do in the Old Continent, with attention to the environment, are rare in the world.”
Federacciai’s 2023 Sustainability Report underlined that Italy is the first EU market for electric furnace steel production and the first G7 state in terms of per capita production. The Italian steel industry is at the European top for decarbonisation and circularity: the sector has reduced CO2 emissions by 60 percent since 1990 and energy consumption by 33 percent since 2000, positioning itself with an efficiency 40 percent better than the European average . Over 85 percent of the steel produced in Italy comes from the recycling of ferrous scrap. This demonstrates the central role that circularity has in our country’s “green agenda”.
