Environmental impact
Metal recycling Mississauga is encouraged. The scrap recycling industry alone transforms about 130 million metric tons of scrap and unused materials coming from manufacturers, consumers and businesses into raw materials that can be used for processing. This figure is on an annual basis. Metal recycling Mississauga helps therefore the environment in different ways. Without recycling scrap objects, mining companies will be pushed to explore more virgin natural resources. Recycling also helps in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions on very large scales. This in turn will save the energy that is needed to manufacture the different products that people build, buy and use. The energy that is saved in the process can be directed to other purposes like powering automobiles and heating homes or commercial establishments.
Jobs
Scrap recycling is now a bustling industry dedicated into the transformation of materials in order to create new products and improve the country’s economy. In the US, there is an estimated 137,000 people who are employed in the scrap recycling industry.
Ferrous scrap recycling
Globally speaking, steel is the most recycled material. In the United States, about 74 million metric tons of ferrous material is processed by the industry last year. This accounts for more than 55 percent of the total volume of all materials that are processed domestically. There are also obsolete ferrous scraps which can be recovered from steel structures, railroad tracks, automobiles, ships, household appliances, farm equipments and from other sources. Additionally, the scrap materials which are taken from industrial and manufacturing facilities accounts for almost half of the total ferrous scrap supplies.
Nonferrous scrap recycling
What are non ferrous materials? These materials pertain to copper, nickel, lead, aluminum, zinc, tin and others. These are materials which do not degrade or do not lose their physical and chemical properties when recycled. Because of this property, nonferrous metals can be recycled several number of times or even infinitely.
Last year, about eight million metric tons of these non-ferrous scrap materials were processed in the United States. These nonferrous scraps come from a wide array of sources: commercial, consumer and industrial. The materials collected from these sources include copper, precious metals in electronic devices, automobile batteries, soft drink containers, airplane parts, appliances, radiators, aluminum siding and more.
Interesting facts
In the United States, the copper that is recycled on an annual basis is equivalent to more than 26,000 statues of Liberty. If all of the aluminum scraps that are processed in the United States were used only to produce soda cans and if these cans were lined up, it will stretch to about more than 25 million miles. This is the distance from Earth to the planet before it, Venus. Annually, the US processes more than 250 billion pounds of scrap materials which is equivalent to the weight of 70 million cars.