Procedures involved in metal recycling:

Recycling is generally known as the process of obtaining new products from the renewal of used articles that efficiently reduces factors like the consumption of fresh raw materials, energy consumption, various types of environmental pollution and production of greenhouse gases. It is essential to conserve natural raw materials so that we are not drained off our valuable resources and preserve the ecological balance of nature.

Metals form an integral part of our day to day lives. The various products we use on a regular basis include goods like household appliances, cutlery, aluminum beverage cans, steel cans, various types of pins and needles, some disposable medical products and so on. It is believed that the metals like aluminuim and steel have high scrap metal recycling value, so the more we recycle them the more is the energy and money saved. Recycling metals is so efficient such that it uses 95% less energy consumed in the manufacturing of the same. Other metals like copper, brass, bronze, zinc, magnesium, tin and lead are also conveniently recycled.

The most significant advantage of recycling of metals is that no matter how many times you recycle them they retain their properties and are ready to be used all over again with the same efficiency, unlike some other articles like plastic. The most commonly used metals in domestic environments are aluminum and steel. Aluminium is an ore naturally occurring in nature as a mineral combined with oxygen. Manufacture of aluminum involves inducing huge amounts of electrical energy to separate the oxygen from the aluminuim. It is then melted and shaped into various products. Similarly, steel is created in an hot blast furnace involving a chemical reaction, during which iron ore, that is the raw material used in the process, is separated from its oxygen content. Both these metal production processes consumes enormous amounts of energy. On the contrary, their recycling process only uses about 4% of this total energy, which has many positive implications including reduction of energy consumption and emission of greenhouse gases.

For recycling metals, they are first sorted out into two major categories. One is ferrous metals, these are made up of steel and iron while the other is non-ferrous metals, such as aluminuim, copper, nickel, brass, titanium, lead, chromium, etc. Non ferrous metals are easily recycled as compared to the ferrous metals. Household metal scraps are sorted based on the above categories. Steel cans are melted down and impurities are separated and thus the recycled product obtained is widely used in the construction industry. The other by products are used to make more cans and other similar products. On the other hand, aluminum cans are compressed and melted down followed by removal of impurities and are then rolled into sheets that find numerous applications again. This process is far more faster and the recycled product are back into the market in no time.

So inorder to inculcate smart living in this rapidly depleting natural resource environment, it is important to recycle your metal goods that helps save a lot of energy and a lot of other resources like water, reduces emissions of carbon dioxide like gases thus decreasing air pollution, increases the landfill space and also reduces the need to mine more and more raw materials at a faster rate thus helping in their preservation.