US: Research by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that local sales of iron and steel (ferrous) slags were 15Mt in 2022 with a value of around US$795m. This is a slight decrease from the 15.7Mt reported in 2021. 49% of the volume sold in 2022 was blast furnace slag and this accounted for the majority of the total value of the slag. Steel slag produced from basic oxygen and electric arc furnaces accounted for the remainder of sales. Around 2Mt of slag was imported for consumption.

The USGS said that slag was processed by 25 companies servicing active iron and steel facilities or reprocessing old slag piles at about 123 processing plants in 33 states, including facilities that import and grind unground slag to sell as ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS). It added that domestic GGBFS remained in limited supply in 2022 because granulation cooling was available at only two active US-based blast furnaces and only one local plant produced pelletised slag in limited supply. It noted that granulated blast furnace slag was only ground domestically by cement companies.

US: Harsco Environmental’s Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) fell by 27% year-on-year to 0.45 in 2022 from 0.62 in 2021. The division of Harsco Corporation says it is its third consecutive year of improvements in workplace health and safety. It was attributed this to its Visible Felt Leadership program, which launched in 2021. The initiative is focused on engaging and empowering employees to take personal responsibility for safety and communicate with their peers and leaders when they spot health and safety concerns.

In 2022, Harsco Environmental added four International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 45001 certified sites. With the addition of these four sites, Harsco Environmental has a total of 65 ISO 45001 certified sites globally.

India: The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has used steel slag to construct a 1km section of National Highway 713 that connects Arunachal Pradesh's Kurung Kumey district to the Chinese border. The slag material was donated by Tata Steel and transported from Jamshedpur to Arunachal Pradesh by Indian Railways free of charge, according to the Press Trust of India. The project was an initiative of BRO Director General Lt Gen Rajeev Chaudhry to introduce sustainable new technologies with the help of Central Road Research Institute-Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CRRI-CSIR) and Tata Steel.

UK: Teesside University is working with a number of partners, including Material Evolution, on developing a new type of concrete using steel slag. The ‘Mevocrete’ project has a total budget of Euro8.6m and it received around Euro3.5m funding from the Innovate UK scheme. It intends to build a full scale on-site unit for cement production using waste steel slag at the Teesworks industrial zone. Researchers from the university’s School of Computing, Engineering & Digital Technologies will analyse the steel slag and its chemical composition and measure how efficient it is at sequestering carbon. The projects aims to manufacture a concrete that emits up to 85% less CO₂ compared to a traditional concrete made from Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC).

Material Evolution is the lead industrial partner on the project. Other partners include Celsa Manufacturing UK, LKAB Minerals, Nanomox, Enursan, Retaining UK, Geocast, Playfair Capital and ZTL Contracting.