Despite it’s fall, however, a recent start-up boom, supported by world class universities leading research into robotics, medicine and computer science, has breathed new life into the western Pennsylvania city. Bigger tech companies such as Facebook, Uber and Google have also recently set up local offices there.

Boasting a steady supply of new jobs, the city has begun to attract educated young people seeking new careers and opportunities.

This younger demographic has driven Pittsburgh’s booming food scene into the national spotlight. Zagat named the city America’s No. 1 Food Town of 2015 and Saveur called it a “beer and spirits destination.”

Pittsburgh’s recent transformation has enabled the city to once and for all shake its lingering reputation as a smoggy, blue collar steel town. But it has not forgotten its roots.

Blast Furnace Fun

In an effort to continue to revive the city, tourism officials and preservationists are now adapting defunct factory sites to tell the story of how Pittsburgh made its name.

The Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area is one example. This attraction has transformed the non-functioning Homestead Steel Works site, which at its peak produced a third of the nation’s steel, into an area that commemorates the rich history of the industry. Perhaps the highlight of the attraction is the guided tour of the Carrie Blast Furnaces.

Constructed in 1906, Carrie Furnaces 6 and 7 stood at the heart of U.S. Steel’s Homestead Works until 1979. At one point, the furnaces and the steelworkers who labored in them produced more than 1,000 tons of iron per day. These 28-meter-tall structures presently stand as sentinels to Pittsburgh’s steel heritage.

On the tour of the furnaces, guides—some of whom are former steel mill workers—lead visitors through the iron-making process, sharing the story of the site’s technology, workers and culture from its prime to the post-industrial present.

Visitors to the Rivers of Steel Heritage Area can also explore other converted industrial facilities, cycle the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail and admire numerous public artworks crafted from steel.

Symbolic Steel

Steel art can also be found in other parts of the city, with The Workers being one of the more famous installations.

Originally commissioned as a small project in 1997 by the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of City Planning, this collection of sculptures now stands big and tall, celebrating the Steel City’s heritage in an unconventional but impactful way.

The 6-meter-tall sculptures of steel men at work were fashioned from leftover scrap metal from abandoned Pittsburgh steel mills, an iron hot-metal ladle donated by another mill, and the ties from bridges that once carried steel’s raw materials across the city’s rivers. For 15 years, the creators of the project—24 artists of Pittsburgh’s Industrial Arts Co-op—collaborated with industrial, foundation and political entities to make this massive artwork a reality.

The mediums and techniques utilized to create The Workers are a testament to the unions that have set Pittsburgh in motion: unions between its people, workers and capital; between the land and the rivers that run through it; unions of the past, present and future.

The Workers commemorates the rich industrial steel heritage of the Pittsburgh region and honors the individuals who contributed to it, but also celebrates the modern evolution of one of the country’s rust belt and industrial cities into a contemporary, lively metropolis for people to live, work, create and contribute.

Steel City Highlight: Birmingham, USA

Steel City Highlight: Kaohsiung, Taiwan

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In addition to affecting individuals’ health, foodborne illnesses such as Salmonella, Campylobacter and E. coli hinder socioeconomic development by straining medical facilities, and hurting national economies, tourism and trade. Moreover, food supply chains now cross multiple national borders, making such diseases an even bigger threat.

As such, providing sanitary conditions for the harvesting, processing, handling, storage, transport and preparation of food and beverages is one of the most important objectives of the global food processing industry.

To safeguard the public from foodborne illnesses, regulatory bodies around the globe impose hygiene regulations on food processing and packaging equipment. Stainless steel, among other advanced metal finishing processes, enable food processing and packaging facilities to meet industry regulations while preventing the outbreak of potentially fatal foodborne illnesses.

Super Steel

Stainless steel has proved itself worthy in areas where sanitation and cleanability are imperative. The material’s hygienic properties, corrosion resistance, strength and formability benefit both fabricators and users in the food and beverage industry, making it the go-to material in restaurants and public kitchens around the world.

Surfaces and equipment that come in contact with food products such as raw meat or eggs must not only be easy to clean and sanitize, but also have surfaces that naturally inhibit food adhesion and bacterial growth. Having no pores or cracks to harbor dirt, grime or bacteria, stainless steel is easily cleaned with soap and water.

When it comes to food preparation, stainless steel is suitable for vandal-prone environments where scratches might occur, and is highly durable and long-lasting, which helps to save costs. Unlike other materials such as copper and zinc, stainless steel is also generally inert to most of the acids and alkalis released by cooked foods, spices and additives. The metal does not normally get pitted—a form of corrosion that leads to the creation of small holes in the metal—thus avoiding the worst chance for bacterial infection.

In addition to helping to ensure sanitary surfaces and reduce the harboring of bacteria, stainless steel also helps to maintain the taste and color of edible products such as milk, processed foods and alcoholic beverages. Its sleek aesthetics are only an added bonus.

Clean and Green

While the material helps to improve food hygiene all over the world, stainless steel is becoming an increasingly popular solution to solve many of the problems related to the lack of hygiene in food-related environments specifically in emerging economies such as India, Mexico and China.

Because food in these countries is often prepared and sold in the streets, or even stored out in the open exposed to pollution and dust, stainless steel food containers help to minimize damage and risk to human health.

Moreover, much of the food in these countries is spicy, made up of aggressive ingredients and strong coloring agents. Corrosion-resistant stainless steel equipment and containers are suitable for handling such abrasive ingredients and help to reduce to a great extent the risk of food poisoning. In this way, stainless steel is far superior to plastics, aluminum and earthenware, as well as other materials.

And, of course, stainless steel is completely recyclable, making it not only environmentally-friendly, but also highly desirable in increasingly overpopulated nations where recycling is becoming more and more imperative.

Thanks to its corrosion resistance, strength, formability and recyclability, stainless steel will no doubt continue to be the preferred material in maintaining proper food hygiene in food-related environments around the world.

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Košice, Slovakia: A Steel-Inspired Capital of Culture

As one of the oldest industrial hubs of Slovakia, steel production has played a vital role in the economy of the eastern city of Košice for quite some time. The main development of iron started in the 13^th century and the technology of steel production progressively improved until 1959 when a deed was signed for a modern metallurgy plant. Five decades later, the Košice mill has developed into a steel-producing plant that has managed to widely reach the markets and achieve a position among significant steel producers.

 Košice has since reforged itself into a city of the arts, and was designated “European Capital of Culture” in 2013, along with Marseille, France, for its efforts to transform dilapidated industrial structures into contemporary art galleries, performance theaters and independent culture centers. In addition to the city’s gorgeous Gothic architecture, it is also home to the renowned ice hockey team HC Košice that plays regularly at the Steel Aréna. (Image: http://bit.ly/1CjHtVM )

Visakhapatnam, India: Steelworks on the Sea

Often coined The Jewel of the East Coast, the port city of Visakhapatnam was identified as one of the fastest-growing in the world, economically and demographically, with steel playing an important role.

In the 1970s, Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, announced the government’s decision to establish a steel plant at Visakhapatnam. It has since become the only Indian shore-based steel plant and is situated on 33,000 acres, making the city a gateway for the development of the steel industry.

In addition to its flourishing economy, Visakhapatnam’s beaches, hilltop parks, caves and wildlife sanctuaries have helped the city become a significant tourist destination of natural beauty. Its serene temples, such as Simhachalam Temple, allow visitors to experience the spiritual side of India. (Image: http://bit.ly/1JR9l3k )

Pittsburgh, USA: The Original Steel City

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania became one of the most well-known steel cities in the world during the American Civil War, when the city’s economy was amplified by the increased production of iron and weaponry. By 1911, Pittsburgh was producing half of the nation’s steel, and during World War II, the city saw local mills operate 24 hours a day to produce 95 million tons of the metal.

Today, Pittsburgh may not produce as much as it did in its heyday, but the “Steel City” still boasts more than 300 steel-related businesses and visitors can even go on steel tours. Additionally, the city’s most visited attractions, such as the Carnegie Museum, founded by Andrew Carnegie, the most influential figure in the expansion of America’s steel industry, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, a stunning house that uses steel as a main building material, are a testament to the importance the metal still plays in this historical and cultural city. Sports fans shouldn’t miss out on a Steelers football game. (Image: http://bit.ly/1LPF7jt )

Newcastle, Australia: Surf & Steel

When military rule ended in 1823, the penal settlement that was originally Newcastle advanced into a pioneer town. The dawn of the 20^th century saw the city evolve into a site for steelworks, due to its abundance of coal. In 1915, a local steelworks opened, beginning a period of some 8 decades in which Newcastle’s fortunes were brought on by the steelworks and heavy industries. A deadly earthquake struck in 1989 and ten years later, the steelworks closed after 84 years of operation, having employed about 50,000 throughout its existence.

Creative repurposing has transformed the old and outdated to new and trendy, and art projects and festivals have allowed inner-city neighborhoods to prosper. It is along the sandy shores of “Best in Travel”-ranked Newcastle that bohemian culture meets surf culture and top-rated restaurants overlook an industrial port. Today, even as Newcastle embraces its rough-and-tumble industrial past, it is continuously looking to the future as a regional capital of creativity and cool.

Whether you’re traveling to the Australian coast or the cultural capital of Slovakia, these vacation destinations forged from steel and sweat have plenty to offer travelers seeking new experiences and wanting to explore unfamiliar lands. Safe travels this summer! (Image: http://bit.ly/1H6mPVJ )

In the North Pacific, there is an entire area the size of Texas that is made up primarily of garbage. This floating island of waste, not-so-affectionately referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, swirls around slowly with the ocean currents, imprisoning ill-fated sea creatures and marine life, while trapping non-biodegradable debris, breaking it down into tiny toxic bits and dispersing it throughout the ocean’s waters.

Of these marine wastes, plastics are perhaps the most common and the most harmful, as they tend to act as a chemical sponge, concentrating the most damaging pollutants found in the world’s oceans. In fact, for every pound of natural plankton in this area, there are six pounds of plastic.

This gyre, or system of circular ocean current formed by the Earth’s wind patterns and rotational forces, spans waters from North America’s West Coast to Japan, where it meets other gyres. Here, the marine waste is further circulated along oceanic highways.

The continuously circulating pollution, along with warming water temperatures, has severely affected marine ecosystems throughout the world. South Korea, for one, began to encounter the ill effects of this problematic situation in the early 1970s with the first occurrence of reef degradation, or “the whitening phenomenon,” off the peninsula’s southern coasts. “Stressed” coral, unable to photosynthesize due to decreasing algae, quickly began to perish.

As industrialization in these areas continued to increase and tourism began to flourish, damages expanded across the eastern and southern coasts, as well as Jeju Island. The seawater’s self-purification capability steadily weakened and the accumulating amount of marine wastes and toxic substances permeating Korea’s waters kept sunlight from reaching the ocean floor. Without sufficient sunlight, and thus nutrition and oxygenation, the number of algae and sealife dwindled significantly, causing distress to both the ecosystem and the nation’s fishing economy.

Triton Saves the Day

In an effort to rehabilitate Korea’s valuable marine ecosystem, POSCO, a world leading steel company, teamed up with the Research Institute of Science and Technology (RIST) and the Korean government to lead an unprecedented environmental initiative. In 2000, after extensive research, POSCO and RIST developed Triton to promote marine forestation in the damaged areas.

Named after a sea-god of Greek mythology, Triton is structure made of steel slag, an eco-friendly by-product of steel making that contains a high proportion of iron and calcium, elements that just so happen to provide ideal conditions for the growth of seaweed and algae spores, and the purification of contaminated sediment.

It didn’t take long—a year and a half, to be precise—for the forestation efforts to be effective. With steel reefs providing a more habitable, biodiverse environment, abalone and sea cucumber, creatures that had all but died out, prospered. Additionally, the restoration of the marine ecosystem contributed to the increase of fish productivity and therefore the local economies of coastal towns and villages.

That year, close to 200 Triton reefs were installed in eight fisheries along the coastal area of Geomun Island. Since then, POSCO has used steel slag to implement numerous other sea slag forests, and has played an active role in the nation’s marine afforestation projects to help the ecosystem adapt to climate change and demonstrate how by-products from the steel industry can be used in a way that yields positive outcomes for the environment and for communities.

Volunteering to Make a Difference

Unlike other sea-gods, Triton possessed a twisted conch shell, on which he blew like a horn to placate or raise the ocean waters. Legend has it that its sound was so jarring that it could put the giants, who imagined it to be the roar of a dark wild beast, to flight. Like Triton’s conch, POSCO hopes to make a lot of noise about the issues plaguing the world’s oceanic ecosystems.

As such, some 600 of the company’s employees who are passionate about making a difference have joined together to create POSCO Clean Ocean Volunteers. The group, which is dispersed throughout Korea, plays a leading role in marine conservation and educating the public about the importance of the marine environment. The group’s past efforts, in conjunction with local governments, maritime police and the coast guard, have included activities such as water purification, beach clean ups and the salvaging of sunken ships. The Clean Ocean Volunteers have also been proactive in the removal of , which in recent years have increased exponentially and have had a negative impact on the local fishing industry.

In his opening speech, CEO Chung said, “The current economic partnership between Korea and Australia is mainly based upon the developments of natural resource and infrastructure. To achieve a qualitative advancement for both countries’ economies, we need to expand the partnership to the Creative Economy sector.”

He then emphasized the importance of leveraging the two countries’ advantages for a common goal. “Australia is showing its strength at culture and tourism industries while Korea has a well-built infrastructure for ICT and manufacturing. I believe we can explore a new business opportunity together through maintaining and developing a mutual supplementation,” the CEO added.

John Walker, the Chairman of Macquarie Korea, mentioned the efforts made by the Australia-Korea Business Council on the recent designation of Korean as one of the Australia’s 5 important languages. He also participated in a meeting held by the Australian government last November to encourage the economic cooperation with Korea.

For the main discussion, about 60 participants, including the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea Kim Bong-hyun and the Premier of Victoria Denis Napthine, shared their thoughts and opinions about the co-production of super yacht, exclusive theater for hologram operas and medical smartphone.