If there is anything worth recycling, its Aluminum. When recycling plastic, about 20-30% of material is lost; for Aluminum it is less than 4% lost. So, if youve ever thrown out one of those metal take-out containers, please, start feeling bad. Its metal, an ELEMENT, it will never be destroyed. Once we have mined it, we can continue to use it FOREVER, unless someone lets it get to a landfill. Most recycled aluminum goes from bin to shelf in as little as 60 days; otherwise it has to be mined from underground, and the ore has to be smelted, which is extremely polluting. They are currently building a smelting plant in the Brazilian rain-forest. The amount of aluminum thrown away yearly is twice the amount that smelting plant will produce, in other words, we could prevent an entire smelting plant from being built in the rain-forest by throwing metal in the right bin. According to CRI (Container Recycling Institute) We have thrown over 1 trillion cans in landfills, 17.5 million tons of Aluminum—a quantity of scrap aluminum worth about $21 billion at today’s market prices. Every YEAR America throws away enough Aluminum to completely re-build the entire fleet of all U.S. airplanes. unep.org/resourcepanel/Publications/Recyclingratesofmetals/tabid/56073/Default.aspx
Posted on: Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:21:25 +0000
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