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Tees steel is hot property
RECYCLED Teesside steel has been given a new lease of life in Heathrow Airport’s new Terminal Five complex, which opens for business tomorrow.
Corus has supplied 35,000t of structural steel sections and plates for the new £4.3bn terminal - with 15,000 coming from Teesside and the rest from Corus’ operations in Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, and Dalzell, near Motherwell, in Scotland.
The demolition of the Lackenby open hearth steel plant in 2004 resulted in more than 20,000t of scrap steel being recycled. The metal was remelted in Corus’ Teesside steelworks and turned into new steel for a wide variety of uses, including structural sections for Terminal Five.
Much of the Teesside steel can be found in the airport’s superstructure. It was supplied to Severfield-Rowen Group, which fabricated and then erected it on the site.
“Not only has this recycling programme reduced waste and saved on raw materials and energy, the new steel is also 100% recyclable. It can be brought back to our Teesside plant in the future to be re-melted and turned into something new,” said managing director of Teesside Cast Products, Jon Bolton.
The Lackenby open hearth steel plant was demolished four years ago, after it was decided the building had come to the end of its useful life. Scrap metal is critical to the manufacture of new steel as more than 45% of all steel products include some recycled content. Using scrap metal in the steelmaking process saves on raw materials and energy, and reduces emissions of greenhouse gases.
The recycling of the steel in this example saved enough energy to supply nearly 4,000 households with their annual energy requirements.
In addition to the Heathrow project, the Teesside recycled steel was also used in vans, cars, rail sections, a new stand at the Oval cricket ground and even coins at the Royal Mint.
