A slag heap made up of iron industry waste in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, UK Ashley Cooper pics/Alamy
Scientists are exploring whether a legacy of the UK’s polluting industrial past, the dozens of slag heaps that dot the country, could chart the way to a cleaner future by slowing climate change.
Since the industrial revolution, about half of the country’s slag – a stony by-product of making iron and steel – has been used as a construction material. But the other half is an unseen and unused potential resource, with around 180 millon tonnes in heaps, many now grassed over.
