Vladimir Potapov

L

ike other states, Russia has not been passed over by the process of arranging ecology management. Severstal JSC is one of the country’s leaders in this respect. And it was no accident that precisely this steel company represented the Russian business community at the conference on "Protecting environment and maintaining ecological security: international legal, legislative, technological and economic aspects" that was held in the city of Mikkeli (Finland). Along with Finland Russia is a member of the Arctic Council, which oversees observance of decisions being made under the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) so as to provide ecological protection of arctic regions.
epresentatives of Severstal JSC had a lot to tell participants of that conference: just before this gathering the company arranged a meeting of ecological and public organizations from countries, which are members of the Arctic Council. Besides, the company has its own rich experience of processing persistent organic pollutants and it successfully develops the ecology management system. In November 2003 the Bureau of Veritas Quality International (BVQI) completed the certification audit of this system that confirmed its compliance with the ISO 14001 international standard. It goes without saying that such a result will contribute to further strengthening the company’s positions in the world market since the availability of this certificate is one of the main requirements that rolled metal suppliers should meet.
General director of Severstal JSC Anatoly Kruchinin explained that the ecology management system was developed as far back as 2001. In his words, by that time the waste utilization exceeded 90%. In 2003 this index reached almost 95%. As Kruchinin stressed, the company processes not only the current waste but also the waste accumulated earlier and stored in dumps. In particular, Severstal JSC completely processes steel-smelting slag, which is then used in highway engineering. The company’s longtime efforts made it possible to close the water rotation cycle by 98.2%. As a result, foul water discharges were reduced by 2.2 times.
In 2003 Severstal has started implementing a new project to construct a complex for a 100% processing blast-furnace slag. The commissioning of the crushing-and-sorting plant with the annual production capacity of about 1 million tons of road metal is set for April 2004. Studies of the building materials market as well as the experience of their production between 1997 and 1999 by using equipment rented from one of Finland’s company proved that products of blast-furnace slag are in demand by the construction industry. Particularly, this road metal is widely used in manufacturing reinforced-concrete structures. As Nikolai Arkhipov, the chief ecologist at Severstal JSC, pointed out, putting the new plant in operation "will allow to completely solve the problem of processing hard waste with the use of our own equipment".
The financing program of Severstal JSC for the period between 2002 and 2007 provides for investing $161.7 million in measures aimed at reducing the production negative impact on the environment. Referring to this figure general director Anatoly Kruchinin stresses that the ecology-related activity is an important component of the corporate standard. Financing them has been constantly growing. In 2003 alone expenses for these purposes have increased 20%. In particular, investments have been made in constructing a gas-purification plant at the converter production facilities as well as in hydrochloric acid regeneration installations, in reconstructing and repairing hydrotreating installations, gas-cleaning systems of blast furnaces and sintering machines.
Such an activity is in line with the country’s policy. As Russia’s prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov said, "Russia wholeheartedly supports the energetic international cooperation in the Arctic", which, in his words, "is now concentrated on such areas as protection of the environment".
ARCTIC COUNCIL
The international regional structure formed to promote cooperation in protecting the environment and maintaining the stable development of arctic regions. The Declaration on its establishment was signed on September 19, 1996 in Ottawa (Canada) by representatives of eight states: Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Norway, Russia, the U.S., Finland and Sweden. The Council’s chairmen are rotated every two years. Since October 2002 it has been chaired by Iceland.
Russia has also joined countries that observe provisions of the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants. The Stockholm Convention was opened for signing on May 23, 2002. Representatives of 90 states signed it then. The Convention obliges governments to take administrative and legal measures so as to stop production and use of twelve persistent organic pollutants, which are included in the category of chlorganic compounds. They are toxic as well as resistant to decomposition and they can be carried away to large distances and get accumulated in living tissues.