MRAI 2024: Circular economies in a decarbonized world

India’s steel output has been rising steadily this decade, with its tenured blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace mills a part of that picture. Imperatives to reduce emissions and incentives to create a circular economy, meanwhile, point to a bright future for scrap use and alternative technologies in the nation’s future.

Delegates attending the 2024 Material Recycling Association of India (MRAI) International Material Recycling Conference in Kolkata, India, in late January, heard from several presenters and panelists who expect India’s scrap use, hydrogen power and electric arc furnace (EAF) technology to grow.

Sachit Jain, managing director of India-based Vardhman Special Steels, said providing green steel becomes an imperative in the global market of the future. While this will boost scrap demand, he said using natural gas or hydrogen to make lower-emissions direct-reduced iron (DRI) also will help make it profitable for India to install more EAF capacity.

In neighboring Bangladesh, Sanjoy Ghosh of BSRM Steel says Bangladesh has no blast furnaces and relies on EAF technology and induction furnaces to make circular “green” steel. He says Bangladesh scrap-fed EAF capacity is in the midst of expanding and “more projects will come.”

Guest speaker Shri Amitabh Kant, author of the 2023 book Made in India, said investing in India’s circular economy should be a priority for businesses of all types in the nation.

He added India will have to become the world’s largest economy “not by polluting [but] to grow by decarbonization, noting already industrialized and urbanized nations had “occupied the carbon space” and citing a figure of 89 percent.

On the recycling front, he singled out expat ethnic Indian entrepreneurs such Surendra Borad Patawari of Belgium-based Gemini Corp. and Sunil Bagaria of New Jersey-based GDB International as those who should be encouraged to return to India to bolster its circular economy. “It’s time for India to benefit from their expertise and knowledge,” Kant said.

“India must become a champion of the green economy.”

The needed investments in collecting, sorting and recycling of ferrous and nonferrous metal, paper and plastic, Kant said, will provide millions of jobs. “In my view this is a huge opportunity," he concluded.

The 2024 MRAI International Material Recycling Conference was Jan. 23-25 at the Biswa Bangla Mela Prangan convention center in Kolkata, India.