Together with waste disposal professional Saubermacher, the Upper Styrian steel producer Breitenfeld Edelstahl is setting a focus. “Our goal is to drive forward the circular economy in steel production and completely eliminate waste,” explains Andreas Graf, Chief Technical Officer of Breitenfeld Edelstahl AG. “By partnering with Saubermacher, we are not only taking our commitment to sustainability to the next level, but also sending a strong signal to the entire industry,” says René Jurak, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Breitenfeld Edelstahl AG.
Based on a comprehensive situation analysis, a wide range of measures and fields of action were identified. For example, commercial waste was analyzed using a so-called recyclables scanner. This detects incorrectly discarded waste. The result is positive: While the average residual waste garbage can in Styria contains around two thirds of incorrect waste, the figure for Breitenfeld is only 25 percent. Additional communication and training measures for local employees are intended to further improve waste separation. Another relevant waste stream is oil-contaminated cleaning cloths. Washable and reusable cleaning cloths were tested in production. With a complete changeover, waste is avoided altogether and sent for reuse. This also reduces high thermal recycling costs. The recycling of sludge from ironworks is also being tested. Some of the sludge is currently still sent to landfill, but could be used as a raw material substitute after a drying process. Other measures include the improved use of waste heat, a new storage facility for used oil, the construction of PV systems on the company’s own landfill sites and the examination of the possibility of producing hydrogen in-house.
Legal framework important for progress
A major challenge when reusing production waste or by-products is being able to turn them from declared waste back into a product in the legal sense. Thanks to research and development, there are already ready-to-use solutions in the industry today. However, their approval and implementation is very time-consuming and resource-intensive due to the lack of legal regulations.
Shared vision for sustainability
The collaboration between the two long-established Styrian companies began over 30 years ago with operational waste disposal services. Breitenfeld’s awareness of sustainability has grown more and more over the years, and for some years now there has even been a separate department for environmental protection. The people responsible for this, Michael Handler, Andreas Schirnhofer and Manuel Pitter, have been in charge of the joint zero waste project at Breitenfeld. Hans Roth, Saubermacher founder, says: “I am very proud of our collaboration and would like to thank René Jurak and his team. It takes companies like Breitenfeld that invest boldly in the future and implement measures not only on the basis of economic considerations, but also with an eye on the big picture and pursue climate protection on their own initiative.”
