Recycling

9 Pages 2333 Words

s of bauxite and 1,500 pounds of petroleum coke for every ton of aluminum recycled. More than 95 percent of all canned beverages are sold in aluminum containers. Aluminum is one of the easiest products to recycle. First, aluminum cans are 100 percent recyclable because there are no caps, labels, or tops to remove before recycling. Second, the market for used aluminum is enormous because of the energy and raw materials saved during the process of recycling aluminum. There are many other aluminum products that can be recycled besides aluminum cans. Some of these are pie plates, foil, frozen food and dinner trays, and some take-out containers. Other types of heavy aluminum include lawn furniture tubing, house siding, downspouts, gutters, storm door and window frames, and even pots and pans. I counted 66 aluminum cans and 9 pieces of aluminum foil during my four weeks of collection. The aluminum cans I collected can be remelted and back on the supermarket shelf in as little as six weeks. Aluminum is said to be the most energy-intensive material in common use, which makes recycling aluminum all the more important. Used aluminum cans are collected from curbside collectors or drop off sites and smashed and baled for shipping. They are then taken to a processing plant where the aluminum is shredded, remelted, and cast into a new slab of aluminum weighing up to 30,000 tons. These slabs are then passed between huge rollers and other equipment to produce a sheet of aluminum with a thickness of .0047 of an inch. New batches of cans are then cut from the sheets and sent to manufacturers who make beverages. This process is much more energy efficient than manufacturing aluminum with virgin ore (Palmer 9-13; Carless 60-64). In the other metals category, I listed two different types of products. Food cans and metal hangers. Metal hangers are easily recycled by taking them back to the dry cleaning shop on your next trip. Most cleaners are glad to take th...