Promise of turning pollution into cash spurs industry in Germany

Dusseldorf

FROM cement and steel producers to the makers of plastics, European companies facing increasingly stringent limits on industrial emissions are trying to come up with creative ways to transform the pollution they produce.

HeidelbergCement is using blast-furnace slag in concrete, aiming to cut carbon dioxide emissions by a quarter this year compared with 1990. ThyssenKrupp plans to re-purpose gases emitted by its steel smelter into saleable products such as methanol. And Bayer's Covestro plastics unit is chemically converting CO2 into an ingredient in the foams used in mattresses and sports equipment.