Tin Mill Products:
Best steel ever for canned goods

For most people, the soup they heat up for lunch comes in ordinary "tin" cans, but for those in the know, the cans are tinplated steel containers made by customers who buy thousands of tons of coils from Sparrows Point each year.

Sparrows Point has Bethlehem's sole production facility for tin mill products, and it is one of the division's most stable and valued markets, with shipments of about 600,000 tons annually. Our products include tinplate, chrome plate, black plate and tin-coated sheets. The most intensive and difficult to make of the division's products, tin and chrome plate require the greatest number of production steps.

Many of the food cans lining grocery and pantry shelves have changed substantially. Sophisticated and efficient production machinery used by our customers is speeding production and reducing costs. Instead of three-piece cans, many are two-piece, with a drawn body and separate top. Container manufacturing processes are requiring stronger, yet thinner and more flexible steels with the highest degree of reliability.

Growing uses for tinplate continue to evolve with large markets such as aerosol containers for paint or personal hygiene products, decorative tins and automotive oil filters.

The best of facilities are needed for the production of top quality tinplated sheet steel, and Bethlehem has invested heavily to obtain a superior end product. Since the mid-1980's we have modernized our basic oxygen furnace steelmaking facilities, installed a new continuous slab caster, modernized the hot strip mill, which supplies the coils of steel, and modernized nearly every piece of equipment in the tin mill.

Within all of these facilities, dedicated employees coordinate closely with one another, resulting in superior quality and on-time performance. In addition, these employees volunteer as members of special customer-response teams. Their effort is appreciated by tinplate customers who repeatedly award Sparrows Point "certified" or "excellence" status as a supplier.

While competitive materials such as glass, plastic or aluminum joust with us in the marketplace, they are no match for tin- and chrome-plated steel containers on strength, cost and versatility.

An ordinary "tin" can? Hardly!

Can Recycling On the Rise

The recycling of steel cans in the United States should increase from 1.5 million tons annually to 2 million tons, long term, and the addition is expected to be easily consumed by the steel industry.

Steel mills account for more than 90% of the consumption of steel can scrap; foundries, 5%; copper precipitation, under 5%.

Dave McSweeney, who heads AMG Resources, a steel recycling center located at Sparrows Point, says his post-consumer steel can business increased 500-600% between 1990-96. "In 1990, we were handling about 200 tons per month of tin cans, and, in 1996, it was more like 2,500 tons per month," Mr. McSweeney said.

Each year the steelmaking furnaces at Sparrows Point consume about 20,000 tons of steel cans. Every ton of steel recycled saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,000 pounds of coal and 40 pounds of limestone.