The best way to ensure that stainless products have a minimal impact over their lifetime is to ensure that the right grades are chosen for products in relation to their operating environment, and that good manufacturing practice is employed in stainless applications.
The quality of stainless steel is not adversely affected by recycling. The same stainless steel can be recycled an infinite number of times to form new high-quality stainless steel products. Estimates by the International Stainless Steel Forum (ISSF) indicate that some 80 percent of the stainless steel currently being discarded is collected and remelted. Recent research results published in the magazine of Iron and Steel Institute of Japan suggest that the actual end-of-life recycling rate could be even higher at more than 90 percent.
Statistics supplied by ISSF show that the total volume of recycled steel used for production of new stainless steel amounts to 60 percent of aanual global stainless steel production. In Europe, the input of recycled steel is slightly higher than global average at some 70 percent.
In 2007 Outokumpu used 1 480 000 tons of recycled steel which is 86 percent of the total amount of stainless steel produced and 63 percent of total raw material consumption.