American Zinc Recycling’s (AZR’s) subsidiary American Zinc Products produced over 90,000t (81,646mt) of finished zinc metal at its Rutherford, Pittsburgh plant in 2020.
The company, which resumed operations at the plant in March 2020 after it was idled in 2019 is operating the facility at 70pc capacity at present and plans to ramp it up to full capacity to produce 155,000t of special high-grade (SHG) zinc per year from recycled scrap, according to a media statement from AZR on Mar 9.
The Rutherford plant recycles steel dust produced from an electric arc furnace to produce the finished zinc products using waelz kiln technology, making it the only company in the US to do so. This year, the company plans to recycle around 500,000t of steel dust to produce SHG zinc.