How Recycling Scrap metal helps the Environment.
Waste recycling is the best practice for environment conservation. The number of industries for scrap metal recycling has entirely increased with an excellent and surprising scope. These industries have significantly helped in boosting the economy and benefiting in environment conservation. A wide range of these metals including copper, iron, aluminum, and steel can be recycled. This process of scrap metal recycling reduces emissions of carbon, saves energy, and also conserves the natural environment.
Saves energy
The process of recycling metals uses less energy than smelting ore in the creation of new metals. Metal recycling saves up to 90% of the energy used for copper, and up to 92% of the total energy required to mine and process aluminum. The amount of energy saved during the recycling process of metals reduces greenhouse emissions and also allows a region to reallocate the energy resources to other worthwhile activities, like transportation.
Natural resources conservation
Some of the scrap metals globally can be recycled almost open-endedly, which implies that it will take fewer resources in creating the metal products that we use every day. It is estimated that recycling one ton of steel metal conserves roughly 2,500 pounds iron ore and around 1,400 pounds of coal. This does not only conserve many of the world’s most precious non-renewable resources, but it will also help in lowering the emissions resulting from the extraction and processing of the pure metal ore.
Waste reduction
Recycling of scrap metals releases up landfill space for true junks like discarded matter and other non-recyclable plastics. Most recyclable metal products are quite bulky thus with the continued growth in the scrap metal recycling rate is likely to reduce the need for unsightly. Scrap metal recycling also reduces smaller-scale eyesores within its neighborhoods and encourages more productive land uses.
Reduction of environment pollution
Scrap metal reutilizing is more efficient and less energy-intensive than extracting and refining raw metals through traditional mining process. Mining usually produces a significant number of environment hazards, groundwater pollution, unstable geological conditions and habitat destruction. Most mining requires large inputs of fossil fuels and so does the recycling process, though, recycling is less energy-intensive than mining and doesn’t to ground pollution or cause any physical scar to the environment.