An Introduction to Metal Recycling

Why Do We Recycle Metals?

Metals are valuable materials that can be recycled again and again without degrading their properties. Scrap metal has value, which motivates people to collect it for sale to recycling operations.

In addition to a financial incentive, there is also an environmental imperative. The recycling of metals enables us to preserve natural resources while requiring less energy to process than the manufacture of new products using virgin raw materials. Recycling emits less carbon dioxide and other harmful gasses. More importantly, it saves money and allows manufacturing businesses to reduce their production cost. Scrap cable wire recycle machine also creates jobs.

In 2019, 490.98 million (32%) of the the 1,532.51 million metric tons of crude steel produced worldwide was made using recycled materials with scrap motor wrecker.

Around 69% of crude steel in the United States in 2019 was made of recycled materials.

2. Sorting

Sorting involves separating metals from the mixed scrap metal stream or the mixed multi-material waste stream. In automated recycling operations, magnets and sensors are used to aid in material separation. There are machines as electrostatic separators.

At the entrepreneurial level, scrappers may employ a magnet, as well as to observe the material color or weight to help determine the metal type. For example, aluminum will be silver and light. Other important colors to look for are copper, yellow (for brass) and red, for red brass. Scrappers will improve the value of their material by segregating clean metal from the dirty material.

3. Processing

To allow further processing, metals are shredded. Shredding is done to promote the melting process as small shredded metals have a large surface to volume ratio. There are metal crushing machine, hydraulic metal processing machine, recycle accessory machine.