Material Recycling
In a layman term, material recycling is a great way to preserve natural resources. We conserve nature and use our God-given natural resources in an efficient and sustainable way only when we opt to recycle materials used to manufacture after use. Those scrap metals by the mechanic shop can undergo metal recycling for the manufacturing of a brand new car. Not all materials, especially plastic materials are recyclable. Therefore, you can contribute to saving the planet by buying products made of recyclable materials.
Almost everything in your house can be recycled – the metal, plastic, electronics, glass, textiles, and paper. The process of recycling is pretty easy. First, materials are taken to the collection centres where they are sorted from other wastes such as food; and then cleaned and reprocessed into raw materials for industries. Sometimes we recycle complex products to remove just an element. For example, gold could be gotten from computer parts, and lead from car batteries.
Metal Recycling
Metal recycling is the easiest of all waste management process. For instance, metals such as steel and iron can be separated from other wastes at a dumpsite magnetically. Such metals are then melted to their liquid form by the use of an electronic arc furnace. Aluminium can also undergo unlimited metal recycling without losing its quality. However, this time, the metal(aluminium) is reduced to pieces and grounded into what is known as bales. Now, you must have heard about aluminium smelter plants, these plants melt the bales to produce liquid-flowing aluminium. One great advantage of metal recycling as oppose to other forms of recycling is that metal recycling can be done again and again without lowering the quality of the metal as suitable raw material for manufacturing purposes. In fact, you can hardly tell the different between a recycled metal and one just gotten from its Ore.
Critics
Several negative things have been said about recycling of materials, especially recycling of metals. Not surprisingly, many of such criticisms have been coming from both the mining industry and the manufacturing industry. As you know, the mining industry does not want to see a decline in demand or a fall in value of their ores. The manufacturing industry is simply complacent with status quo–business as usual– and do not see metal recycling as a really big deal since it does not significantly improves their profit margins.
Fact and Figure
More than 60% of rubbish that ends up at the dumpsite could be recycled. If you don’t recycle your plastic, it will take more than 500 years to decompose, and before it degrades,contributing to make the environment dirty. In addition, the use of plastic and aluminium for packaging is growing by the year, if we don’t recycle them, then it is a big waste of natural resources.
Recycling reduces wastes by lowering large scale raw material production which in turn reduces energy usage and as such lower greenhouse gas emission. The benefit of metal recycling is far-reaching. When we recycle everyone benefits. There is financial reward to both theword’s economyand private institutions. Above all, we are directly preserving the world’s natural resources for the next generation after us.