India’s First Steel Slag Road

Surat, Gujarat is the first Indian city to get a road built from processed steel sludge ( industrial waste). This road has been developed as a joint- venture project by the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), NITI Aayog, Union Steel Ministry, and ArcelorMittal-Nippon Steel (AM/ NS), at Hazira, a suburb of Surat.

About the project

The construction of this road began a year ago. It was done by converting mounds of steel waste into steel sludge. This road has six lanes, with three lanes on either side. Heavy- duty vehicles of multinationals that are located in the industrial estate on Surat’s outskirts are using this road. This steels road’s construction cost is 30 percent cheaper than the roads that are built using natural aggregates. Also, this road’s thickness is 30 percent lesser than the normal ones. As steel sludge is used to construct this road its durability is much longer. This project has been implemented under the Waste to Wealth and Clean India Campaign initiative.
The process of building this road
The sludge that was used to make this road was generated from a steel furnace that was burning at 1500 to 1600 degrees centigrade in the form of molten flux material. The molten material was also poured into sludge pits so that they can be cooled and was processed further to develop the stable steel sludge aggregates that were used to build the road. The constructed road required around 1 lakh tons of processed steel sludge.