- LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters)
- Steel from the wreckage of the World Trade Center is destined for a new
life in India and China, where it has been sent for recycling and is set
to end up in new construction projects.
-
- One firm taking steel from the huge project to clear
Ground Zero is New York's Metals Management.
-
- Company president Alan Ratner said it had bought 70,000
tons of scrap from the ruined twin towers, some of which had been shipped
across the Pacific to Southeast Asia.
-
- Ratner said four or five vessels had already sailed from
New York with consignments of scrap. Among them are the ``very dense''
steel girders from Ground Zero, which could finally yield 250,000 to
400,000
tons of scrap for recycling, he said.
-
- The World Trade Center's broken steel outer skeleton
comprised of steel beams up to two feet thick. Its guts yielded many tons
of steel office furniture and filing cabinets, to be baled into large cubes
for shipping.
-
- Mobile shearing machines gnaw through some of the smaller
girders, but the beams from the base of the towers are some of the heaviest
ever used, and must be seared through with torches. Sources in Chennai
port, India said two 33,000 ton consignments had already arrived, a third
was on its way and a fourth was soon to arrive at India's West Coast port
of Kandla.
-
- The cargo ship Borzna arrived in Chennai at the start
of January and its scrap consignment, a third of which came from the twin
towers, should be unloaded by Thursday, they said.
-
- A second ship, the Shen Qua Hai, is also being unloaded
and should be leaving in 10 days time.
-
- Shipping sources said the beams were so dense that a
full load would probably break through the bottom of the ship, so they
would have to sail as part cargoes.
-
- The demand for 20 or so crane-fitted ships to do the
job could well be enough to boost the freight market, they said. Sources
in India said the scrap had been bought at $120 per ton and would be
recycled
into ingots, which would be sold on to various industries, including
construction.
-
- Not all of the World Trade Center's carcass is sailing
for Asia. Metal Management's Ratner said the City of New York will keep
some mangled metal for a memorial to those killed on September 11.
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