Harsco Corporation announced that its Harsco Environmental division opened two new SteelPhalt asphalt plants for the first time in sixty years.
The new plants, located in Cardiff, Wales, and an additional plant at the existing Rotherham, England facility, manufacture sustainable asphalt products using 95-percent recycled aggregates. This manufacturing process has a carbon footprint that is 40-percent less than the asphalt manufacturing process that uses natural aggregate.
“We are able to provide an innovative approach to quality management of slag by transforming it into a high-quality material that can be used in asphalt products," Martin Gray, managing director of SteelPhalt said. "Using our technical and operational expertise, we have designed products to harness the unique properties of slag to provide asphalt products that are not only reducing the need for quarried aggregate, but also providing a more durable and safer road surface."
The new plant in Cardiff, Wales, is situated to efficiently utilize slag from the surrounding area and is designed to produce up to 300,000 tons of sustainable asphalt products per year for the roads of South Wales and South West of England. It is the first permanent asphalt plant in Cardiff in over 70 years.
The new plant in Rotherham, England, will be located on the same site as SteelPhalt’s existing Rotherham plant. The existing SteelPhalt plant in Rotherham is the busiest independent asphalt plant in the U.K. The opening of an additional plant on the site will allow for an increase in service and product offering as demand for more sustainable asphalt products increases.
“Opening these additional plants offers Harsco another resource for the handling of slag from our steel mill customers while also responding to the ever-increasing demand to be more sustainable and mindful of our impact in everything we do. SteelPhalt offers a solution that is beneficial for our steel mill customers, asphalt customers and the environment,” said Gray.
With over fifty years of knowledge, experience and technical expertise, SteelPhalt has built a reputation around sustainable innovation by developing asphalt products that can outperform conventional asphalt in durability, consistency, skid resistance and sustainability.
Steel slag aggregates regenerate their surface texture with use and therefore maintain a high level of skid resistance throughout their life. A durable material, steel slag retains its strength even after years of road use thanks to its strong affinity to bitumen, limiting water damage and the stripping of binder. The natural shape and interlocking properties of steel slag aggregates improves resistance to permanent deformation of the asphalt, providing it with a superior resistance to rutting. Additionally, using steel slag aggregates to create asphalt avoids the use of quarried materials and while also avoiding residual slag product from being sent to a landfill.
