Awesome, terrifying, and exactly what it says on the tin. Watch as recovered ship plates are cut, melted, extruded and stamped to become millions of nails. Fear, as workers jump and dodge thrashing lines of red hot metal.

I’ve been trying to work out what the stats on steel recycling are including, and what they might be missing. One thing I suspect they are missing is the size and diversity of ‘informal’ scrap recovery and recycling, especially in so-called developing countries.

It’s one thing to ask steelmakers how much scrap they use – and to ask how much of that is end-of-life scrap, how much is manufacturing scrap and such like. And then to try to work out whether those numbers are capturing the recycling of stainless steel scrap, or the use of scrap by iron and steel foundries. And what about recovery and re-use, as distinct from recovery and recycling? But how much scrap gets recovered and re-used or recycled in the ‘informal’ sector, out of the sight of any official statistics?

And so I did what sometimes passes for research today, and got googling (other search engines are available).

It turns out there is a rich vein of videos showing exactly how scrap gets turned into stuff. Anchor chains, old machinery… you name it, it’s being smashed up and resmelted to make engine parts, winches, rebar, nails…

I’ve picked this one to share. The business is A.S.Mughal Brand nails. So far as I can tell the workshop is in Pakistan.

Like a lot of informal sector work the health and safety practices are absolutely terrifying. But it is work. And it is certainly recycling.

When we talk about a fair transition in the steel sector we are often thinking about the disruption of workers as steelmaking moves from billion dollar blast furnace businesses to billion dollar direct reduction iron businesses.

And when we talk about the need to increase the scrap recycling rate, there’s a tendency to think this is just about making more scrap available for large electric arc furnace companies.

We should pause, and ask whether that scrap might already be being used – and if so, what are the implications.

Here’s the video on TikTok (there are both longer and shorter versions on YouTube).