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Steel and the Green Globes™ System:
How Steel Can Contribute to a Greener Structure
For many years, there has been a strong economic motive to incorporate recycling into the process for making steel, but today's environmental concerns make recycling even more important. Recycling saves money while conserving energy and resources, as well as reducing solid, liquid, and gaseous wastes. It also helps to spread the energy impact of the original extraction and manufacturing of the material over infinite generations of new steel.
In the construction industry, recent interest in steel recycling is being driven largely by green building rating systems such as Green Globes, which promote the use of materials with high levels of recycled content.
The amount of recycled content in steel products varies over time, both as a function of the cost of steel scrap and its availability. As the world demand for steel increases, the available scrap is stretched between more and more steel products, meaning that more raw steel has to enter the production stream to meet demand. Fortunately, steel is the country's most widely recycled material and, as more steel is used, more scrap becomes available for future recycling. About 88% of all steel products and nearly 100% of the steel used in construction beams and plates are eventually recycled into new steel products.
In addition to recycled content, steel can contribute toward several other Green Globes credits, either directly or indirectly. Steel is dimensionally stable and, when properly designed, can provide an exceptionally tight building envelope, for less air loss and better HVAC performance over time. It's also made to exact specifications, so on-site waste is minimized. Material from demolition or construction can be easily recycled, with the magnetic properties of steel greatly facilitating its separation from other materials.
As with any building process or material, there are areas for improvement. A great benefit of rating systems such as Green Globes is that they can help the steel industry recover even more scrap as contractors improve their recycling collection methods at the job site, so less incidental iron and steel scrap escapes to landfills. Similarly, commercial buildings and residential housing can have better disciplined recycling systems for increased recovery.
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