Five Encouraging Reasons Why You Should Recycle Metal
Recycling in the modern world has been phenomenal for life productivity through reduction of waste and unnecessary costs, reduction of manufacturing costs, ensuring prudent use of limited resources and in the reduction of landfill interventions.
Many people are knowledgeable on the importance of recycling in as far as reducing wastage, reusing and recycling of paper and plastic is concerned but not many people know that it is possible and beneficial to recycle metal too.
1. Prudent Use of Material Resources
Recycling facilities for metals can be thought of as mines standing above the ground with great potential for resource and environmental conservation. Additionally, the cost of recycling metal is by far less than the cost of mining and refining metals from unexploited metal ores.
Scrap metal is not waste rather scrap metal provides an available resource that can be constantly exploited without getting depleted.
2. Reduction of Emissions
Recycling of scrap metal provides a faster and more energy-efficient supply of metal compared to the extraction and refining process of metal ores through conventional mining and refining methods.
Additionally, mining of metal inherently creates environmental hazards, toxic runoffs that contaminate groundwater and leaves large depressions in form of damaged ground that takes years to heal. The exploitation of metal ores has a real danger of destroying natural habitat for wildlife, water pollution and weakening the geological structure of the immediate ground.
Much as the recycling process also requires energy input from fossil fuels, it is considered a more energy-efficient practice than mining. Additionally, recycling of metal is friendly to the environment and does not leave any physical scars on the ground or cause water contamination by any means. Processes in the recycling of metal do not need open pits to function.
There is a great volume of greenhouses gases released to the atmosphere during mining as compared to recycling. The gases emitted impact on global warming while harmful gases can cause respiratory health concerns for both human and animal life.
3. Lower Demand for Energy
Recycling lessens the demand we put on natural resources. Additionally, less energy is required for recycling of metal compared to mining and exploitation of natural metallic ores.
Recycling of metal requires less energy because unlike mining metal, the recycled metal need not be purified or liquefied to give the metal its desired shape.
Conservation of Energy
Below is an illustration of per cent measure of the energy saved from the recycling of metals compared to the production of metal from metal ores:
• Aluminum – 92%
• Copper – 90%
• Steel – 56%
By recycling a single portion of aluminum, we stand to save enough energy to light a 60-watt bulb for over four hours nonstop.
4. Powering the Economy
Recycling is cost-saving and allows an individual as well as the government to save huge amounts of money capital that can be diverted to finance other ventures in investment in public infrastructure and services such as healthcare.
Noticeable Economic Benefits of Recycling
The recycling industry takes in a lot of labor input. The hired manpower is an active avenue where the country realizes massive growth in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.
Over half a million jobs have been created by the scrap metal industry alone according to a study carried out by the Scrap Metal Recycling Institute.
It is worth noting that qualification for recycling jobs needs one to have a high level of training and a specialized set of skills.
The salary earned in the recycling industry is dependent on the location of the job and the size of the employer. Recycling jobs in States with high wages pay considerably more than other states with lower wages.
5. Lowering the Price for Newly Mined and Refined Metal
One of the major benefits of recycling metal is the cost-saving benefit of scrap metal as a resource. Also, we can manage to lower the overall cost of metallic items if a majority of the population especially manufacturers could completely recycle metal instead of dumping it. The cost of canned goods and other common items will significantly fall.
Recycling of metal has incredible positive benefits of increasing our productivity levels, cutting down on unnecessary costs and wastage as well as supporting a sustainable environment.
