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Recycling |
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Solids |
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(Current Recycling Technology and Processes) |
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Metal Recycling Process (Page 1) |
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Go to Page 2 |
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Metals are one of the most recycled materials today. The reason why recycling metal is so popular is mostly due to certain factors: mining and processing virgin ores is significantly expensive, environmentally unfriendly, and it depletes our finite resources. The two most common metals recycled today are iron and steel. With today's technology, we are able to efficiently process unprepared metal scrap and essentially turn it into new steel, aluminum, copper, and many other metals. The benefit that iron and steel have over other metals is their property of being magnetic, which are cheaper to handle, sort, and clean. For a complete list of today's recyclable metal materials, please visit our section Current Recyclable Materials - Metal.
While there are many different ways to recycle different metals, this section will only focus on how the metal parts of a car are recycled with today's technology. The most fundamental metal/steel recycling process to recycle car parts involves the following five steps.
STEP ONE:
An auto body shop sets aside damaged fenders, wheels (without the tires), trunks, and hoods from cars that they repair. |
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Figure: Metals scraps from auto body shops.
[Courtesy of: Western Metals.] |
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STEP TWO:
A metal scrap collector brings his truck to the auto body shops and picks up the damaged steel parts. It then hauls them to a scrap processing yard where the steel parts are going to be shredded.. |
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Figure: Truck collecting the different metal scraps.
[Courtesy of: Western Metals.]
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QUICK LINKS (Specific Table of Contents):
Section I: Introduction
Section II: Present (YOU ARE CURRENTLY IN THIS SECTION)
Section III: Future |
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Home
Complete Table of Contents
Reference |
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