Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) had its environmental management system evaluated in terms of functionality in the first quarter of 2009.

The enterprise’s environmental management system has been certified for compliance with the ISO 14001: 2004 international standards, so the analysis was targeted at finding ways of improving upon the system and making it more environmentally efficient. In the first quarter of the year, MMK actually happened to discharge more pollutants in the air than a year earlier, supposedly because of the growing agglomerate, coke, iron, and steel outputs: these went up by 36.6%, 28.5%, 32%, and 25.6%, respectively.

At the same time, the gross water discharge figures decreased by 3,195 tons, or by 14%, in the first quarter of 2009 compared with the last quarter of 2008.

MMK used 1.14 million tons of production waste to restore the coffins and managed to raise the amount of recycled slag by 22.8%, or 1.55 million tons in the first quarter of the year.

‘This is a great achievement in terms of expenses. At the time of the global economic crisis it’s essential for any company to save up resources. MMK, for one, is doing its best to reduce outgoings, improve on the resource stock, and cut back on all kinds of expenses. Finding some inner raw stock reserves is also very important, so recycling metallurgical slag is one way to do this,’ the enterprise reports.

Meanwhile, MMK spent about 350 million RUR on environmental projects, including 165 million RUR invested in nature-oriented facilities, in the first quarter of 2009.