Metal Recycling PlantRecycling has long been revered as a way to save the Earth from waste and overuse of raw materials.

For the last few decades, education about recycling has become widely available. Many cities have even adopted recycling programs as part of their waste pick up to help in this effort. However, there is one type of recycling that is about to take off in the market extremely soon. Metal recycling is this all important market share that will take off by 2020.

Auto Recycling

Metal recycling needs to become more important as many raw metals are being stripped from the Earth. These metals are not easily recovered, so recycling them for the long run needs to take place soon. One major way to contribute to recycling metal is to recycle automobiles. They dominate the use of metals, so they should also dominate the metals recycling market. These vehicles require many metals to be manufactured, so it only makes sense that older models or those that have been destroyed in wreckage should be reused in some way.

This recycling needs to take place soon. Raw materials are becoming used in abundance as people have gained more purchasing power, thus creating a boom in the car industry. Therefore, more scrap metal is also becoming more widely available. Therefore, this availability of metal should be taken advantage of.

At current, there is a concern with recycling metals. More money needs to be placed into researching metal recycling. There has been a seven percent growth in this industry since 2016, and there will be continual growth between now and 2020. It can become worth more than $400 million by 2022, to be specific. Right now, that number is only around $90 million, even though it moves 135 metric tons of otherwise useless materials back into the manufacturing process. Research has indicated that there will be more market trends to the positive for this industry in the long run.

Scrap Metal

As far as the environment goes, it benefits greatly from scrap metal recycling. Less energy is used when repurposing scrap metal as opposed to using raw materials. This reuse also means keeping scrapyards, junkyards, and landfills as free of scrap metals as possible. Recycling various types of metals is essential, too. People are used to recycling aluminum at their curbside pickup. Up to 92 percent of energy is saved when recycling aluminum over using raw materials. It also conserves almost 4 metric tons of bauxite ore each year. However, conserving steel means saving much more, such as 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal, and 120 pounds of limestone per one ton of scrap metal recycled.

Water and air also benefit from scrap metal being recycled. This situation happens because it means saving the environment from potentially hazardous materials being placed in landfills. Water run-off from these landfills can lead to further pollution. One of the key factors of removing scrap metal from landfills is getting ahold of mercury-activated switches and removing them from older vehicles. The same can be said of lead being recovered from computer monitors, too.

Much more research needs to be done on ways to take scrap out of yards and landfills and place them into recycling programs. However, current research indicates that doing so will treat the environment rather well. One of the major benefits of this industry is that it creates many jobs. It is a major, booming industry, as stated previously, so there are plenty of positions forming all of the time to make sure research are done properly to ensure that scrap metal will be turned into new products to avoid using raw materials.

There are many benefits to recycling scrap metal of all kinds. Not only does it benefit the Earth, but it also prevents many industries, including the automobile industry, from using raw materials that are becoming scarce. It also means making jobs and money in the long run, too.