In the United States alone, according to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), recycling of scrap metals reaches up to 150 million metric tons for a year which includes 85 million tons of iron and steel, 5.5 million tons of aluminum, 1.8 million tons of copper, 2 million tons of stainless steel, 1.2 million tons of lead and 420,000 tons of zinc. Therefore, recycling old scrap metal products really will help our environment because by recycling them at least 95% less energy will be used rather than manufacturing it from new materials. Below are some of the tips and ideas on how to recycle metal.
What you need to know:
- Exporting recycled metal
- Saves on energy
- Conserves Natural Resources
Method:
- The government should also play the main role when talking about recycling metal. For example in the United States for the year 2008, the scrap recycling industry generated at least $86 billion and also provided jobs up to 85,000 peoples. The recycled metal are processed into raw materials every year for the usage of manufacturing industries all around the world and the United States managed to export up to $28.6 billion (at least 44 million metric tons of scrap metal commodities).
- Recycling metal really saves a lot of energy and also reduces the greenhouse gas emissions. By recycling, we uses less energy rather than to make a new metal from virgin ore. For example, recycling aluminum can saves up to 92 percent of energy, 90 percent energy saved for recycling copper and 56 percent energy saved for recycling steel.
- By recycling metal, you could also conserve natural resources. For example, for every one ton of steel that you managed to recycle, it will conserve up to 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal and 120 pounds of limestone. As for recycling one ton of aluminum, you will be conserving up to 8 tons of bauxite ore along with 14 megawatt hours of electricity.
- You can almost recycle all aluminum and steel products over and over again without compromising on their content and some of the main recyclable metal products include aluminum, soda cans, appliances, auto parts, windows, doors, steel, tin cans, bridge parts and also torn-down buildings.
- For recycling aluminum products, it only requires 5% of the energy and it only produces 5% of the CO2 emissions compared to other primary production, thus reduces the waste going to landfill. Aluminum is also the most cost-effective material to recycle and reprocessing it does not damage its structure.
Additional Reading:
http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/metal-recycling.htm
http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/metals.htm
http://www.greenstudentu.com/encyclopedia/recycling/metal
Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adders/2652528316/
