bold spirit - ArcelorMittal South Africa

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78 ArcelorMittal South Africa Annual Report 2010 Environmental performance continued All efforts continue to be made to ensure that we operate our plants within the expected environmental standards. At our Vereeniging Works, projects to reduce the levels of fluoride in the discharged effluent have been successful, while we also have reduced levels of boron in the effluent from our Tubular Products division and levels have remained compliant since July 2010. We are working hard to reduce the amount of waterborne effluent discharged by our plants, and both Saldanha Works and Vanderbijlpark Works have long held ZED status. As such these plants recycle 100% of their effluent. At this stage, Newcastle Works and Vereeniging Works do not recycle any water. Our most pressing challenge is to make Newcastle Works a ZED plant, and to secure a new water use licence for this operation and Pretoria Works. We remain in close contact with the authorities on the status of our applications but are yet to receive the actual licences. At Vereeniging Works, projects to reduce the levels of fluoride in the discharged effluent have been successful. Although there are occasional spikes in fluoride levels above the one milligram per litre discharge specification, these rarely reach two milligrams and are a huge improvement on the 30mg spikes experienced in the past. Spikes are typically due to overflows or leaking pipes and are, without fail, reported to the relevant authorities. We also successfully reduced levels of boron in the effluent from our Tubular Products division at Vereeniging Works and levels have remained compliant since July 2010. During the year Pretoria Works experienced an increase in sulphate and chloride levels in their discharged effluent due to high leachate volumes from the slag disposal sites. This was reported to the authorities and internal investigations suggest the problem was caused by excessively high rainfall in the area during early 2010 and new slag reclamation areas that were exposed to such high rainfall. High leachate volumes were not experienced in the past and especially not during the dry seasons. Update on key water-related projects Newcastle Works • ZED project: Design of the biological water treatment reactor required by the plant has taken longer than expected and although this is now complete, the issue has delayed the project as more civil work is required than originally planned. Completion date is now set for early 2013. Obtaining the necessary environmental authorisations also takes longer than expected following NEMA and the Waste Act. Vanderbijlpark Works • New gravel filter plant (coal water project): We experienced design challenges and contractor-sourcing issues during the year which delayed the final planning of the project. This project will improve our ability to treat organically polluted water from our cokemaking operations and is now scheduled for completion by 2014 – gravel filters for tar removal form an important part of this project. The project had to be postponed due to the poor economic situation our sector finds itself in. The second phase of this project will entail a biological treatment plant to be installed after completion of the coal water project to further enhance the recycling potential of this water as re-use is currently limited. • Groundwater management plan: This was completed in Q4 2010 and will inform the important decisions to be made in 2011 as to the preferred methods to reduce current pollution levels and restrict its spread in the underlying aquifer.
79 ArcelorMittal South Africa Annual Report 2010 Waste, by-products and recycling We remain committed to recycling as many of our by-products as possible, and to finding markets for those that cannot be recycled. However, although disposal is our least-preferred course of action, it is sometimes unavoidable with certain by-products. Other pressing issues relating to air and water have also necessitated tough decisions regarding approval of capital expenditure allocation. Consequently, investment in re-use of by-products had to be constrained. During the year we generated 4 045 720 tonnes of steel by-products, managing to recycle 13% and sell 45% to customers. In total, 39% was disposed of as waste. This is down by 4% on the previous year’s figures. The main reason for the improvement is increased demand for our by-products as the economic situation slowly improves. The most significant by-product streams that were disposed of are listed in the table that follows: Waste type Weight mass Disposal method Steel slag 668 591 Landfill Iron slag 42 336 Landfill Other metallurgical waste, including: Furnace and gas treatment sludges, dust and dolochlor 371 002 Landfill The company’s hazardous-waste streams consist mainly of tarry sludges and oil-contaminated waste, 242 679 tonnes which were disposed of at certified hazardouswaste disposal sites during the year. Newcastle Works makes use of an internal hazardous-waste disposal site but hazardous waste from Saldanha, Vereeniging, Pretoria and Vanderbijlpark Works is transported to external hazardous-waste facilities. This is managed by external contractors who are certified to transport hazardous waste. Financial constraints and relative importance have focused much of our efforts on finding markets for our by-products which otherwise need to be disposed of as general- and hazardous-waste streams. While we have not made significant progress in improving our disposal rate, we continue to look for alternative markets for various by-product streams. While the steel making process has a significant environmental impact, the products we make do not. Steel is almost infinitely recyclable and easy to recover from waste streams. Around 19% of the steel we produce is made from recycled scrap steel and while we do not track the percentage of packaging reclaimed once our products leave our operation, such packaging is also made largely from recyclable steel. By-products disposed % of total by-products 43.20 19.60 28.10 91.00 36.50 48.06 13.49 29.95 93.27 35.60 51.68 9.28 34.97 92.50 37.97 54.55 28.02 40.94 90.36 43.80 48.40 17.31 36.20 93.90 38.62 Vanderbijilpark Newcastle Saldanha Vereeniging AMSA 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
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Annual Report 2010 bold spirit
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bold spirit - ArcelorMittal South Africa

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