Aluminum Recycling Information
Aluminum recycling is the process of reusing scrap aluminum to produce items from aluminum that initially was used in other products. Aluminum is the second most-used metal in the world after iron, and aluminum beverage cans are the most recycled packaging containers in the world. Recycling aluminum is simple, as is the recycling process itself, and one of the easiest ways for you to be environmentally friendly. By recycling one aluminum beverage can, you not only save money and more energy than it takes to produce one beverage can from virgin materials, you also help to save the environment. Recycling may even make mining aluminum unnecessary in the future.
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Aluminum Usage
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Many of the items you use in your kitchen are made of aluminum. Household uses of aluminum include aluminum beverage cans, aluminum cooking pans, other aluminum food containers and aluminum foil. In addition to household use, aluminum also has industrial uses including buildings, airplanes, trains, cars, greenhouses, window frames and road signs.
Recycling Aluminum
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The most easily recyclable aluminum products include aluminum beverage cans, aluminum cooking pans, other aluminum food containers and aluminum foil. All you need to do is to separate aluminum beverage cans from the other aluminum products. In some places aluminum beverage cans are redeemable for cash.
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Advantages
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Using recycled aluminum produces significant savings--even when costs of collection, separation and recycling are considered--when compared to producing aluminum from virgin materials. This saves the mining, shipping and waste disposal costs of producing virgin aluminum. Environmental savings are generated by producing only 5 percent of carbon dioxide during the recycling process when compared to carbon dioxide emissions of raw aluminum production. Carbon dioxide emissions are even lower when the entire production cycle for aluminum, starting with mining and transporting the aluminum, are taken into consideration. In addition, aluminum ore is mined using open-cut mining, which destroys large sections of landscape with only limited opportunities for recovery later. Energy savings for recycling aluminum are almost 95 percent compared to producing aluminum products from virgin materials.
Challenges
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The challenges with aluminum recycling are collection and people's willingness to recycle their aluminum products. Recycling facilities can be found in most communities nowadays but they might still not be available in all locations outside of home where beverages in aluminum cans and other aluminum products are consumed. If a recycling facility or bin is not provided, you need to take your beverage cans and other aluminum products with you and recycle them at home. Not everyone is willing to do that. Recycling can also become a time-consuming task for you if your community is without a convenient curbside recycling program and you need to travel to the closest recycling facility to do your recycling. In addition, some people still refuse to recycle their aluminum products even at home.
Process
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The recycling process starts with shredding the whole cans into little pieces and removing any colored coating with chemicals. The little pieces are also cleaned either chemically or mechanically. Then the pieces are loaded into a hot furnace, heated up to at least 750 degrees C to produce molten aluminum. After this, the molten aluminum is cast into either ingots, billets or rods, formed into large slabs for rolling, atomized into powder, sent to an extruder or transported as molten for further processing.
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