| GRN Recycle Talk FAQ Answer |
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 98 13:22 WET From: FRIEDMAN.FRED@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV (Fred Friedman) Subject: Re: Aluminum Recycling (Cindy Karel)
March 12, 1998
Dear Cindy Karel,
To answer your questions:
1. In 20 years, a community that developed a recycling infrastructure, folded planning of recycling and of attracting remanufacturing industries to within its borders, and other aspects of involvement (buying recycled for example), can have recycling industries contributing or even as the economy of its venue.
A community will have saved nonrenewable resources, have saved energy, and generally not have polluted the air/water/land by as much as it would have from nonrecycling behavior: this isn't true of all media for all time and places. However, it is sufficiently the case to be able to suggest that you specifically explore the many cases where this is true.
A community will have incinerated and landfilled less, and will have contributed much less to the creation of greenhouse gasses, hence avoided contributing to so-called global warming.
2. There already is much aluminum recycling information on this website. Check out the READ section, search the site by ALUMINUM and see what you get.
Some Aluminum info in brief: Demand for scrap aluminum is very high. Clean scrap is more costeffective than virgin material. Most aluminum is recycled into beverage containers, auto parts, other packaging uses, construction.
In 1995 about 2,950 thousand tons of aluminum scrap was generated in municipal solid waste about 1,020 thousand tons of which was recycled.
Aluminum recycling has been at a standstill throughout the 1990s. About 63% of aluminum was used in making beer and soft drink cans, by far its largest use.
3. End uses of aluminum are largely packaging, automotive parts, and construction uses.
4. What % of potential recyclables aren't recycled?
In 1995, the following %ages of each material were not recycled:
Paper and paperboard: 60%
Glass: 75%
Aluminum: 64%
Ferrous metals: 63%
Plastics: 94%
Rubber and Leather: 91%
Textiles: 88%
Yard wastes: 70%
- Research Library for RCRA