Steel the World's Most Recycled Material

Steel is infinitely recyclable.  There are few other modern materials that can be recycled over and over again without the loss of their key properties.  That means that even steel created 150 years ago - when its mass production began - can be recycled.

In fact, steel is the most re-cycled material in the world.  More steel is recycled than all other recyclable materials combined, including aluminium, glass and paper.  Steel is easy to recover from any waste stream through the use of a magnet, and is the only material that can be extracted from other waste so simply.

Scrap steel is an essential ingredient in both the integrated steelmaking process used at Port Kembla Steelworks and New Zealand Steel, and the electric arc furnace process used at the Company’s North Star BlueScope Steel plant in the United States.

At BlueScope Steel, recycled scrap steel comprises approximately 30 per cent of raw steel production.  Only a global shortage of scrap steel prevents this scrap content from being even higher.