Can a Steel Beam Stay a Steel Beam?
Gareth Byatt is an engineer who has spent around twenty years on construction and property projects across the UK, France and Australia, and he comes at responsible raw materials from an unusual angle. He isn’t the person digging them out of the ground, but the one who uses them – and who thinks hard about where they end up. A risk manager by training and a systems thinker by instinct, he has even written papers on sand.
His central distinction is deceptively simple: recycling is not the same as reuse. We are good at recycling steel, but we tend to downcycle it, burying valuable niobium, copper and nickel inside low-grade rebar. Reuse asks something harder: can a steel beam remain a steel beam, or a concrete structure be kept rather than demolished? Because those choices are made the moment a building is designed, asking what we can recover once the bulldozers arrive is already too late.
The conversation also travels through sand – the most extracted solid on Earth, and why desert sand won’t do – the carbon weight of concrete and cement, urban mining from Rotterdam to the City of London, and the awkward question shadowing all of it: who actually pays?
To explore Gareth’s Materials & Resources papers and references, visit https://suredis.com/materials-%26-resources
Produced by Critical Productions. Sponsored by Satarla.
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Resources and References:
- More information on the Saqqara pyramid complex near Cairo (which includes the famous step pyramid of Djoser):
- https://egymonuments.gov.eg/en/archaeological-sites/saqqara
- A find that was made in a particular tomb in the Saqqara pyramid complex in 2018, which was on Gareth’s mind during the discussion – one he visited it when he was young and it left a lasting impression: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-46580264
- A structural award for the Shard in London: https://www.istructe.org/structural-awards/projects/2013/the-shard-at-london-bridge/
- An architectural award for the Shard: https://www.the-shard.com/news-events/news-events/2014/the-shard-wins-riba-london-best-commercial-building-award
- Gareths Materials & Resources papers and references: https://suredis.com/materials-%26-resources
- Hannah Ritchie: https://ourworldindata.org/material-footprint-limitations
- Ed Conway’s book, Material World: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/446267/material-world-by-conway-ed/9780753559178
- A structural award for the Shard in London: https://www.istructe.org/structural-awards/projects/2013/the-shard-at-london-bridge/
- An architectural award for the Shard: https://www.the-shard.com/news-events/news-events/2014/the-shard-wins-riba-london-best-commercial-building-award
- Sand:
- UNEP reports:
- 2022:
- 2026:
- UNEP Sand Assessment Tool (to assess usage): https://sand-assessment-tool.unepgrid.ch
- UNEP reports:
- Cement and Concrete
- WEF article: https://www.weforum.org/stories/sustainable-development/cement-production-sustainable-concrete-co2-emissions/
- GCA article: https://gccassociation.org/news/cop29-international-definitions-for-low-carbon-cement-and-concrete-launched-to-fast-track-green-procurement-of-essential-building-materials/
- The Breakthrough Agenda: https://breakthroughagenda.org/cement-concrete/
- Gareth’s paper on concrete: https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/8bbcaf75/files/uploaded/190805_MRS-1_concrete.pdf
- Steel
- The international SteelZero initiative: https://www.theclimategroup.org/about-steelzero-
- Example of steel reuse in London: https://www.elliottwood.co.uk/latest/steel-recovery-and-reuse-city-place-featured-in-the-structural-engineer
- Responsible Steel scrap use: https://www.responsiblesteel.org/steel-scrap
- Gareth’s paper on steel: https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/8bbcaf75/files/uploaded/MRS-6_steel_Jan21.pdf
- More Steel Reuse and Recycling Artocules
- https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP/W018705/1
- https://www.newcivilengineer.com/in-depth/why-is-steel-reuse-uptake-low-despite-proven-benefits-31-01-2025/
- https://recyclinginternational.com/commodities/ferrous-metal-recycling/strong-demand-for-recycled-steel-heralds-multi-billion-market-growth/64019/
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344925002423
- https://www.okonrecycling.com/industrial-scrap-metal-recycling/specialty-metals/niobium-recycling-process/
