Harsco Environmental Relaunches SteelPhalt to Expand Sustainable Asphalt Operations

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(Credit: SteelPhalt)

The UK-based environmental services subsidiary Harsco Environmental, a division of Harsco Corporation and the global leader in environmental services and innovative products, announced earlier this week that it is relaunching the sustainable asphalt company SteelPhalt.

SteelPhalt’s relaunch includes a faster, easier-to-use website featuring a new product selector designed to aid current and potential customers in decision-making when specifying materials for a project. Actions such as ordering and tracking will also be automated on the new site to lower customer time spent on administrative tasks.

By utilizing recycled materials such as steel slag, a waste byproduct of steel smelting, SteelPhalt reduces the carbon footprint of road-laying by 40%. Its Rotherham, England facility manufactures sustainable asphalt products using 95% recycled aggregates.

“We don’t quarry the Earth – instead, Harsco Environmental is increasingly focused on carbon-conscious ecoproducts™ such as SteelPhalt,” said Martin Gray, managing director of SteelPhalt.

In addition to being more sustainable, SteelPhalt’s high-performance asphalt outperforms conventional asphalt in durability, consistency, and skid resistance. 

SteelPhalt recently confirmed the opening of two new asphalt plants for the first time in 60 years. With plans to open several facilities over the next three years outside of the UK, the additional plants will offer Harsco another resource for handling slag from its steel mill customers while also responding to the ever-increasing demand to be more sustainable.

SteelPhalt’s origins date back more than a century, when the Slag Reduction Company was created to separate out metal from steel slag and sell it back to steelworks. In the 1960s, the same man behind the Slag Reduction Company formed SteelPhalt to promote and sell products making use of the slag itself. It was acquired by Harsco in 1998.

Due to asphalt manufacturing’s significant environmental impacts, companies are searching for ways to make it more sustainable. One strategy is reclaimed asphalt, which reprocesses existing pavement materials containing asphalt and aggregates. Sources of reclaimed asphalt include pavement removal, plant cleanout, reject material, excess material returned from jobs, and excavation. Project development and construction company Skanska reported in 2017 that reclaimed asphalt reduces greenhouse gas emissions and costs vis-a-vis virgin asphalt while maintaining “at least equal” performance.  

Environment + Energy Leader