The Importance of Metal Recycling

Most people take the importance of metal for granted. The spoon you eat your morning cereal with, the car your drive to work, the wedding band around your finger and even that smartphone you fiddle with all day all use metals in one way or another. In fact, metals are so important your health depends on them— lack of iron causes anemia, insufficient zinc weakens the immune system, and inadequate copper can trigger seizures.

Perhaps due to their ubiquity, people forget that metals, like all natural resources, are finite. According to projections, important metals like indium, silver, and gold will all be depleted within a generation’s span. What’s worse, the Earth needs millions of years to replenish the metal reserves.

Fortunately, metal recycling has become an important way to conserve the world’s dwindling metal supply. Unlike other materials, metal can be recycled over and over again without deteriorating its properties. This means that broken cars and heavy machinery can be melted down and fashioned into something useful again. Metal recycling also releases less greenhouse gases and consumes less energy than producing new metals from scratch. As a bonus, the metal recycling industry also generates 85,000 jobs in 2008 while producing $86 billion in revenue.