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Most people do not look at an old refrigerator, a pile of construction scrap, or a rusted trailer and think about carbon emissions. They just see something that has reached the end of its usefulness!
But what comes after is more important than people know. The neglected old piece of metal can go down one of two routes: rotting in landfills or being recycled into another useful object. The latter might not seem like much to do until you consider that millions of other individuals and companies do the same thing.
Though, the talk about global warming always seems to focus on electric cars and renewable energy.
Those are critical topics. Yet one of the most effective ways to reduce carbon emissions is something much simpler: recycling the metal we already have instead of constantly producing new metal from raw materials.
One of the remarkable things about metal is that it can be used over and over again. A steel beam removed from an old warehouse does not lose its value simply because the building is gone.
The metal can be reprocessed and used again in future building projects. This holds for copper, aluminum, brass, and countless other metals. This means that we do not necessarily have to begin from scratch.
The scrap metal buyers know how to turn waste into gold, and what most people would consider garbage can end up as part of something new in the near future.
This is where the real environmental benefit comes into focus. The process of producing metals through recycling usually takes much less energy compared to when the metals are produced through the extraction of raw materials. In most cases, the variance is quite significant, especially when metals such as aluminum are considered.
Energy conservation translates to reduced emission of gases into the environment.
It is a straightforward relationship. The less energy required to create usable metal, the lower the environmental impact of the finished product.
People sometimes assume their contribution is too small to make a difference. Some scraps of metal from household renovations. An obsolete piece of equipment. A stationary trailer used after many years.
None of these objects may be considered valuable when taken separately. As a whole, however, they symbolize hundreds of thousands of tons of materials that could be reused instead of being thrown away.
Each visit to a junkyard brings more valuable materials into circulation.
One reason scrap metal recycling continues to grow is that it benefits both the environment and the economy.
Property owners can recover value from unwanted metal. At the same time, fewer natural resources are consumed. It is one of the rare situations where the practical and the environmentally responsible options are often the same.
At M&M Recycling, we believe people often underestimate the value of what they throw away. However, although an old metal piece no longer performs its primary task, it doesn’t mean that it can't be put to good use anymore.
The more times metal is recycled, the less energy is needed for manufacturing other metals. As a result, fewer greenhouse gas emissions occur. This decision will have a considerable cumulative effect in time.
It turns out that saving the planet sometimes does not mean changing one’s lifestyle significantly. Saving the planet sometimes means making a choice to give a piece of metal another chance, instead of throwing it away into the trash. Call us for more information.
