Steel is the easiest packaging material to recycle. It is a material that is 100% recyclable. This makes steel a very energy efficient material to use. Due to the strength of the material and its ease of recycling, steel is often used for packaging commercial and industrial products such as food, drinks, aerosols and pet food etc. Today all steel cans contain at least 25% of recycled steel. The process of recycling steel is no new discovery. In fact steel has been recycled for over 150 years.
The easiest way to separate steel from other raw materials is by using a magnet for extraction. By using an efficient and low cost magnet steel can be easily separated from any waste material. Ferrous material can be separated by a single pass suspended magnet or an over band magnet or drum magnet. After separation the steel is crushed into bales. These bales are then added to a furnace along with molten iron and oxygen is blasted through. The common way to recycle steel is to melt it electrically using an arc furnace or an induction furnace.
There are a number of ways in which steel cans may be collected for recycling purposes. People can take part in kerbside collection schemes where households individually separate their trash and put recyclable items into small boxes for collection on a weekly or fortnightly basis. The average house hold uses 600 steel cans a year.
Steel is the most energy efficient material when it comes to making cans. Modern steel is made by alloying it with other materials. The most common form of steel is considered to be carbon steel which accounts for as much as 90% of the steel recycled. Using scrap steel helps to save 74% of the energy resources that are required to make steel from new materials. Merely by recycling one ton of steel companies can save up to 1.5 tons of iron ore, 0.5 tons of coke, 1.28 tons of solid waste and help in the reduction of air emissions by 86%. Using recycled steel also helps in reducing water pollution by 76%.
It takes four times more energy to create steel cans from virgin raw materials than recycled materials. The amount of energy saved annually by recycling steel is enough to power the city of Los Angeles for a decade. For every pound of steel that is recycled, 5400 BTUs of energy is saved. Every ton of recycled steel means that iron ore, coal and lime stone are conserved and can be utilized for other purposes. Recycling steel goes a long way in reducing air pollution and mining wastes.
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