Iron and steel are the world's most recycled materials, and among the easiest materials to reprocess as they can be separated magnetically from the waste stream.
Recycling is done in a steelworks: scrap is either remelted in an Electric Arc Furnace (90-100% scrap), or used as part of the charge in a Basic Oxygen Furnace (around 25% scrap).
Any grade of steel can be recycled repeatedly to produce new usable metal. The quality of the material does not downgrade through the recycling process.
42% of crude steel produced is recycled material.
One of the main sources of aluminium that we receive are drinks cans!
Before it leaves us we crush it into bales to make it easier to transport.
At the smelting plant, these bales are melted in an aluminium smelter to produce molten aluminium. By this stage the recycled aluminium is indistinguishable from virgin aluminium and further processing is identical for both. This process does not produce any change in the metal, so aluminium can be recycled indefinitely.
Recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy cost of processing new aluminium. This is because the temperature necessary for melting recycled, nearly pure, aluminium is 600 °C, while to extract mined aluminium from its ore requires 900 °C. To reach this higher temperature, much more energy is needed, leading to the high environmental benefits of aluminium recycling.