Aluminum is the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust and is valuable in manufacturing many metallic products. For instance, it helps produce household appliances, power cables, airplane parts, beverage cans, and more. Because of aluminum's abundant and valuable nature, recycling is important for waste management and saving mining costs. Statistics show that around 80% of aluminum products in the United States are from recycled aluminum. Below are some of the main reasons to recycle aluminum scrap metals. 

1. Environmental Conservation

Mining and processing aluminum involves emissions of huge volumes of greenhouse gases harmful to the environment. For instance, aluminum smelting results in sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide production. These gases are key components in forming acidic rain, negatively affecting plant growth, soil nutrition, and micro-organisms. Recycling helps minimize the effects of the mining process, significantly contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gas emission. Additionally, aluminum maintains its natural properties such as weight and durability over time. There is no need to keep heaps of aluminum scrap, yet you can recycle them into quality products. 

2. Saving Costs

Mining aluminum is an expensive process that consumes a lot of energy and raw materials. It entails converting raw bauxite into aluminum and requires excessive gasoline use, making the process costly. Recycling reduces production costs significantly without compromising the quality. If your company deals with aluminum products such as beverage cans, putting efforts into recycling helps reduce production costs and maximize profits. As a consumer, recycling helps you get fair prices for aluminum products such as canned beverages because the cost of production directly affects the prices of end products. 

3. Sustainability

Recycling is one of the most important ways of ensuring sustainability and minimizing resource depletion. Aluminum metals are light, and industries can convert them into multiple items for various uses. For example, recycled cans help produce jewelry, cookie cutters, candle holders, and pencil. Recycling helps save the resources companies put into manufacturing these products. Additionally, as the world evolves, there has been an increase in demand for aluminum products such as cars and beverage cans. Mining virgin aluminum cannot satisfy this demand, thus the need for recycling. Lastly, recycling entails collecting, transporting, and sorting scrap. That helps create sustainable employment opportunities for many people.

Take Away 

Recycling aluminum scrap is very important in environmental protection, saving costs, and promoting sustainability. Achieving these benefits is not only the responsibility of production companies but yours too. You can help with recycling by collecting all your aluminum scrap metal and sell to a recycling company instead of creating heaps of waste. A company like Gutterman Iron & Metal Corp has more information.

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