> From iron ore to steel, how much waste is there? Depends on how we define 'waste' and at what part of the process. When they start with the rock from the gr

> From iron ore to steel, how much waste is there? Depends on how we define 'waste' and at what part of the process. When they start with the rock from the ground/pit, the rocks/etc are often crushed, running through some sort of slurry while basically separating the 'ore' out from silicates/etc that will be around them. I'm guessing this is already done close to the site, since transport cost could be fairly high even by past standards. What you wind up Iron ores that are considered 'worth' mining, the actual Iron content is anywhere from ~48% to ~72%. They'll typically have Oxygen, Possibly also Carbon or hydrogen as the 'impurities'. So, there's still a lot of potential waste in transporting all of that. [0] - Also, that would theoretically be useful in filling the pit back up, one would hope. But not sure on that one.