Three Easy Steps to Recycling Metals

When it comes to recycling metal, you have to look at three things. Is it a precious metal, or is it ferrous or is it non-ferrous? Let’s look first at the precious metals; more specifically what makes a metal precious? Actually, it is the rarity and the price. Gold and silver are precious metals, as are all the metals in the platinum family: palladium, osmium, ruthenium and rhodium. Perhaps you have never heard of half of these, but they are all used in electronics and high tech products because they do not corrode easily. You don’t think of precious metal’s monetary values in pennies per pounds, but in dollars per ounce. Yes, jewelry can be recycled and melted down. You hear ads for companies who will pay you cash for your old broken gold or sterling silver chains. But very few metals are “pure”. Gold can be mixed with copper or nickel for strength as can silver be mixed with other metals. You have to know the chemical make-up of the precious metal to determine its recycling price. Did you know for example, that silver can be extracted from X-rays?

The U.S Department of Defense (DoD) has led the way in recycling the platinum metals because they are used so readily in high-tech weaponry. In the past 25 years, it is estimated that over $235 million dollars have been saved through DoD recycling. That will hardly balance the Federal budget, but it’s a good start.

Ferrous means the metal has large iron content. Steel and iron recycling is the most abundant and the most prosperous in the world. Everything from the shavings left from fabricating and welding to the actual red colored beams are gathered up to be re-melted and reused. Cars, trains, ships and silos are also recycled. Smelting raw iron can be environmentally toxic. Re-smelting cuts emission considerably. Not only that, it is easier because the metal has already been freed of impurities, whereas the raw iron has not.

That leaves the non-ferrous metals, which obviously do not contain large amounts of iron. Copper, aluminum, lead and tin consumption world wide is 40% recycled metals today. That’s exciting. Recycling of non-ferrous metal ore has been around for almost a century, so it is widely accepted. The result, as with other recycling methods is less pollution and less energy loss in the manufacturing. I am sure you have heard of copper thieves steeling cable wires. Copper recycling can be a lucrative business because it is so well known. But beware. More and more regulation in the United States as to who can sell copper back to the plants is in process. Very soon you won’t have to have a Doberman watching that cable or gas line coming into your house because skirting the law will be too much of a hassle.

Source by Chris Norriss

Three Easy Steps to Recycling Metals