Minimising mining (primary production) and maximising recycling (secondary production) are core principles of sustainable resource management. Consequently, there is an increasing interest in quantifying the material life cycle of stainless steel and its efficiencies from production to fabrication, manufacturing, use, recycling and, in some cases, disposal.
In 2006, Team Stainless and Yale University started the first project to quantify stainless steel stocks and flow cycles. In 2022, The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology made a more detailed analysis of 2019 data covering 50 countries, territories, and regions.
Stainless steels: A sustainable solution for more than a century
Stainless steels are procured