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China's Iron and Steel Industry More Environmentally Friendly
Anshan, a city in northeast China, was once known as "the invisible city for satellites," because of the heavy pollution produced by its iron and steel industry.
"Now, Anshan's air has greatly improved," said Weng Yuqing, metallurgist and president of the China Society of Metals.
Speaking at a recent academic conference in Changchun, Weng said the promotion of advanced technologies such as converters, continuous casting and tandem rolling has greatly reduced the industry's consumption of energy and raw materials over the last few years, and cut down air pollution and solid waste discharges.
In the late 1980s, open-heart furnaces still accounted for one quarter of the nation's steel production. Now nearly all of them have been replaced by more advanced converters.
The use of converters can reduce the refining time of each furnace of steel from two hours to 40 minutes, saving a great deal of energy and waste discharges.
Experts estimate that technical progress saved the steel industry 32 million tons of standard coal worth 17.5 billion yuan between 1996 and 2000, equivalent to 44 percent of the profit and tax produced by the industry in the same period.
In the 1996 to 2000 period, China's annual iron and steel production increased from 100 million tons to 130 million tons, while solid waste discharges by the industry decreased from 1.7 million tons to 1.1 million tons. Discharges of waste air also decreased remarkably.
Most of the country's major iron and steel works have been literally changed into gardens. Their coverage of grassland ranges between 20 to 30 percent in general terms.
Some of them even raise gold fish in their waste water pools, as proof of the high quality of processed waste water.
"In pursing technical progress, China's iron and steel industry has made a great contribution to the control of global warming," said Weng Yuqing.
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