Steel

I'll comment on my experience but others may have additional information.

In the steel manufacturing process there are two primary raw materials (yes there are others but in terms of mass) - iron ore and scrap. "Extraction" of iron ore is pretty simple to pin point. "Recovery" of scrap can be a bit more difficult since there are generally more locations where 'recovery' happens. As a side note, both of the two basic steel making processes - BOF and EAF - use scrap steel as a primary input. EAF can use other virgin iron units as well.

Some steel producers are able to track the "recovery" locations of scrap steel by zip code. These locations would be the scrap yards where scrap steel is processed just before it's sent to the steel mill to be melted and cast into new 'semi-finished' steel products. Other producers may not track that information (or have it available for calculations).

Further complicating this situation is the fact that some steel mills may produce billets, slabs or blooms which are shipped to other "rolling mills" for further processing into semi-finished materials. In both cases, semi-finished steel products are usually further manufactured or fabricated into the goods which are used on the jobsite.

So understanding where 'recovery' and/or 'extraction' takes place can make a huge difference in the end results.

The current LEED addenda (for NC at least - dated 7/19/2010) indicates that "The extraction point for recycled
materials is the location of the raw material prior to the manufacturing of the final building product. As such, the point of extraction could include a recycling facility, scrap yard, depository, stockpile, or any other location where the material was collected and packaged for market purchase before manufacturing." Unfortunately that can mean different things for different products.

For example, it's possible that items like rebar can be used on the jobsite directly from the rolling mill (final point of manufacture) without further processing at a fabricator. In that case, the "point of extraction" could be considered the "recycling center" (mill that melted the scrap and produced the bloom) OR the scrap recycling center that processed the scrap prior to the steel mill. What's important here is that the "point of extraction" is NOT the rolling mill (although it's possible and likely that the rolling mill and the bloom mill are located in the same place).

However, producers that are capable of tracking scrap collection by location can provide a percentage of their scrap usage that was recovered within a 500 mile radius of the project site. The calculation determines the ratio of their scrap usage that was recovered within 500 miles and multiplies that percentage by that same mills annual scrap usage. While it makes sense that scrap would be sourced close to the steel mill, location and shipping methods/costs can skew the data.

Hope this helped.

Keith

does it not make sense that if a manufacturer is taking in a scrap material, melting it down to create a new product/material, that this would mean it is 'extracted' or 'harvested' at the manufacture point? I have always considered rebar, with it's high recycle % to be a location of harvest and manufacture due to it's makeup.

In past projects, we have been able to provide scrap sourcing estimates, but never 100% accurate distances from the project site.