Metals & Alloys

There has been such a demand for scrap iron and copper here in Panama that they have taken to stealing manhole covers, city park sculptures, telephone cables, ground cables from high transmission lines (and, occasionally the charred remains of someone trying to steal a hot conductor have been found). Most of the scrap, I understand, has been going to China.

Back when I was living in the US, there were a lot of new mini-mills that used scrap iron for feed stock. I suspect most rebar in use today is fabricated from scrap. And what is Mr. Obama proposing to do with all those clunkers he bought for us with our tax dollars? I suspect he is going to crush them and send them to China as well (probably in trade for cheap tires...)

Speaking of tires, there have been a number of products suggested for recycled tires as well.

In short, aluminum recycling gets the attention because that is something everyman can contribute to.

Smaller, more local smelters that pay scrap rates for product (soda / beer cans / etc.) and cast raw ingots would be the most efficient. The resulting cast ingots could then be shipped by truck or rail at better rates to a regular foundry. There it is then processed into standard alloys and / or shapes for regular commercial use.

This would start its own cottage industry of people gathering the cans to sell to the smelter, and cut the transportation costs of moving raw scrap all over hill and country.

The lids of cans are different grade than the draw an ironed can bodies, specialized equipment to separate the two using difference in high temperature mechanical properties is required if you want to make a high grade "ingot." Aluminum's advantage and thius success in recyclability has been its relatively high and consistent value per pound, as well as it s use in consumer items. iron and steel items have been remelted for millenia, but today their fluctuating value and their use in larger scale items compared to say soda cans makes their recycling less visible. To the original question, Hell yes its stupid to drive one pound of aluminum cans 2 miles using 3000 pounds of airconditioned comfort zone (automobile) to "recycle them" Similarly squandrous to have waste streams sorted and then picked up categorically by trucks on the street. Lowest carbon footprint in my opinion is to have central plant sort tear through then recycle materials. Thats what my home town (county actually ) does. I was proud to be on a couple of the committees that developed our solid waste plan back in the late 1980's... milo