How Low Carbon Steel Might Power the Australian Economy

The message is clear: working with sustainable materials is not only great for the planet, but it makes solid economic sense. There’s been impressive strides made over the years by the entire steel industry to increase efficiency of recycling processes and sustainable energy sources, and ShapeCUT are primed to take advantage of them.

With a new economy looming and the pandemic continuing to change the rules of what is normal, it’s a good time to rethink how sustainable manufacturing works in 2021.

Modern Manufacturing Initiative Makes Sustainability Priority One

Late last year the Australian government unveiled a new $1.3 billion fund designed to drive new innovation in the industry, dubbed the Modern Manufacturing Initiative (MMI). It’s designed to reward manufacturers who implement new strategies to their processes, including the use of recycled materials.

ShapeCUT supplier Infrabuild uses low-carbon steel manufacturing technologies and processes. Infrabuild’s “Greensteel” manufacturing approach to produce lower carbon steel. Recycling and upcycling scrap metal reduces pollution, saves resources and greatly lowers the amount of waste going to landfill.

Scrap metal feedstock is fed into electric arc furnaces which lowers the energy and resources required to make steel when compared with primary steelmaking from ores. The company uses its vertically integrated processing capabilities to reduce transport delays and costs.

Accessing recycled steel remains one of the biggest challenges to the process, as it’s not as if people are throwing gigantic steel bridges into the recycle bin every few weeks. However we know that for every tonne of recycled steel we recover, we save 1131 kg of iron ore, 633kg of coal and 54kg of limestone, not to mention the energy used to process it.

ShapeCUT’s System for More Sustainable Steel

At ShapeCUT we’ve implemented our own green policies which have increased productivity as much as they have decreased environmental impact. As we’ve discussed previously, recycled steel is cheaper than mining the elements required to manufacture new steel, so it makes sense to use recycled steel wherever possible.

Our growing Brisbane workshop facility – with one of the largest private steel profile cutting operations in the southern hemisphere – is completely powered by solar, which dramatically reduces our carbon footprint. As we roll out our expansion plans over the next year, our commitment to using renewable energy remains the same.

The health of our entire team is further bolstered by how we have positioned dust and air filtration systems in the workspace that collect pollutants and transform them into recyclable material while improving air quality.

The future of the Australian steel industry, while contending with the dual threats of the pandemic and rising steel costs, is set to thrive thanks in no small part to energy efficient practices and partnerships and we look forward to an even better year ahead.

ShapeCUT is a leading provider of steel profile cutting and metal processing services in Australia. Our commitment to quality processes and more sustainable systems ensures we can deliver a quality result every time. Call our team on 1800 ShapeCUT today.