Platts reported that US zinc recycling giant Horsehead Corp is on track to capture three quarters of the North American market for the recyclable zinc dust generated by steelmakers,

Mr Jim Hensler CEO of Horsehead told Platts that “Despite the arrival of a competitor armed with new recycling technology and designs of its own on a large chunk of the global zinc recycling market. We have been growing our business quite significantly over the last few years. We are the largest recycler in North America. That business is the recycling of electric arc furnace dust, the waste byproduct produced by steel mills when steel is galvanized.”

Mr Hensler said that Horsehead will process about 570,000 tonne of the dust into zinc products this year and have the capacity to recycle nearly 750,000 tonne of the material by 2009. The firm's actual EAFD recycling should top 700,000 tonne by 2010. He said that "In a market that's roughly a million tons in the US and Canada, we're a fairly significant recycler in the EAFD market in North America.”

Mr Hensler said that Horsehead's capacity ramp up consists of the addition of a waelz kiln the technological cornerstone of Horsehead's technology to the zinc firm's Rockwood, Tennessee plant, upping the plant's recycling capacity by about 90,000 tonne. The company is also completing a facility in South Carolina, slated to be fully operational by 2009, where two waelz kilns will increase capacity by another 180,000 tonnes. Horsehead has three other recycling plants in Pennsylvania, Illinois and Texas.

Mr Hensler said that about 60% of Horsehead's end products zinc metal and zinc oxide are made from recycled EAFD, while the other 40% are the result of recycling other waste byproducts, like skimmings from hot dip galvanizers. He said Horsehead's recycling process also produces an "iron-rich residue" that the firm sells to companies making cement and asphalt.