“We have adopted various measures to utilise the plant waste effectively to achieve our goal of becoming a zero waste company. It is our endeavour to make this world class plant into a green plant,” said Dilip Oommen, Chief Executive Officer of Essar Steel. Essar Steel’s plant at Hazira has an output capacity of 4.6 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) and generates 20-24 per cent slag and less than one per cent dust.
The company has developed technology to use slag for manufacturing cement, vitrified steel and build roads. Dust will be used to make bricks by mixing it with rice husk. Other steel firms simply dump these wastes, said Oommen.
He further said that bricks made out of the mixture are 60 per cent stronger than conventional ones, and are not baked but sun-dried.
“We have already built a road using slag, which is under testing. We intend to seek a patent for these two innovations and give it to entrepreneurs who could use it for commercial purposes,” Oomen added.
Essar Steel uses electric arc furnaces to produce the commodity in its lone domestic steel-making facility at Hazira in Gujarat. It is also setting up another 4.9 MTPA facility adjoining the existing plant.