Recycling Scrap Metal
- Recycling your scrap metal means less metal will end up taking up space in landfills that should be reserved exclusively for non-recyclable items. Metals like aluminum cans, tin cans, copper wiring and pipes, steel products, and more can all be recycled and transformed into new materials. When left to waste away in a landfill, they release methane and contribute to air and groundwater pollution.
- Recycling scrap metal preserves natural resources that naturally occur in nature and aren’t renewable.
- Making new metal from virgin mineral ore uses much more energy than recycling scrap metal. Additionally, producing new metals releases more greenhouse gas emissions than the recycling process does.
- Similarly, recycling scrap metal uses far less energy and less water than mining for ore.
- Mining these virgin ores causes pollution because the chemicals used in the mining process contaminate the air quality, soil, and groundwater. Mining also involves the destruction of open land and ruins the habitat of local wildlife. Recycling reduces the need to mine for ore.
- Although this isn’t an environmental bonus, it certainly is a plus: it’s been shown that recycling scrap metals creates more jobs than incinerating metal waste.
