In a major breakthrough, Indian researchers have succeeded in constructing a six-lane highway made with steel waste at Hazira port near Surat in Gujarat.
The success of this pilot project opens up a new opportunity for utilising the 19 million tonnes of metallic waste generated by steel manufacturing units in the country that poses a huge environmental hazard as it has to be dumped at landfills.
"This 1-kilometer-long road at Hazira Port in Gujarat was earlier in bad shape due to trucks carrying several tons of weight but under the project this road was made entirely from steel waste, now more than 1,000 trucks are passing with tons of weight, but the road remains the same," Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CRRI Principal Scientist Satish Pandey said.
With this experiment, the highways and other roads can become stronger and the cost is also reduced by about 30 per cent, Mr Pandey further said.
The project is sponsored by (CSIR) and the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) with help from the Ministry of Steel and Policy Commission and NITI Aayog. The project is also linked to the Government of India's Waste to Wealth and Clean India Campaign.
According to CSRI, the thickness of the road has also been reduced by 30 per cent. It is believed that this new method can prevent the roads from any damage caused during the monsoon season.
"Steel plants have become mountains of steel waste. This is a big threat to the environment, that is why on the instructions of NITI Aayog, the Ministry of Steel gave us a project to use this waste for the construction many years ago. And after research, scientists processed steel waste at AMNS Steel Plant in Surat and got the ballast prepared from steel waste," Santosh M Mundhra, Executive Director, AMNS, said.
This new technology is expected to be capable of preventing road damage during the rainy season as well.
