A tool kit approach to re-using historical steel waste

Concrete is the second most used substance in the world after water, largely due to its low cost, abundance, and reliability in a wide variety of environments. While concrete has been the building block of society dating back to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, current production and utilization methods pose significant energy and emissions challenges.

We are proposing a collaboration between the steel and cement industry to reuse historical steel waste left on site in lagoons or slag piles as a source of geopolymer cement material.

This will allow us to radically reduce emissions up to 85% when compared to Ordinary Portland Cement. We will also be able to rejuvenate land on industrial sites to create new economies, for example the Teesworks site becoming a free port.

Within this project, Teesworks will be used as a working example of how we build a toolkit approach to reusing steel sites and their historical waste. We will create a circular approach to this historical waste and use it to make novel geopolymer cements.

The market opportunity is huge in the UK with current cement shortages, rising prices and CO2 emissions becoming a deciding factor in the construction projects. We are in a perfect position to remove our reliance on importing cement into the UK, becoming self-sufficient in our cement needs by reusing waste currently sent to landfill.