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.

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Identifying Scrap Metal for Buyers

Scrap metal can be a profitable source of business, as many enterprises buy the material for use in making new products. While industries with scrap metal equipment know that there are enough buyers for these materials in the market, many homeowners may not be aware of this, thereby depriving themselves of possible money making ventures. However, it just takes a little knowledge to learn about which scrap metal can attract a lot of buyers.

For example, copper is one of the most common materials in home structures, and is reddish in color if it's in good condition. It can be found as pipes in your plumbing, gutters, inside air conditioners, and in ordinary electric wires. While aluminum is used in canned products, it can also be used as sidings, window frames, and doors.

On its part, brass can be found in keys, door handles, light fixtures, and bathroom fixtures, as well as in your plumbing and the end of copper piping. Steel is the most common metal used throughout the world from cars to chairs, shelves, cabinets, household appliances, and most other modern tools and devices. Of course, these scrap metals would not really be worth millions, unless you have tons and tons of material to sell.

However, for scrap metal buyers any kind of metal is valuable. So why throw used metal objects away and contribute to environmental hazards, when you can earn something from them?

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A Few Silver Pieces for a Few Pieces of Silver

Recycling scrap metal is a great move not only because you get to earn a couple of bucks from selling them but also because you help Mother Nature by reducing the need to supply more metal and reducing the amount of waste that end up in landfills. All you need to do is bring scrap metals to the yard and have them weigh it and see how much they're willing to give you.

Although any kind of metal is pretty much okay for scrap metal buyers, there are a few kinds that buyers would be more than happy to purchase from you. Most of these would be non-ferrous metals which are non-magnetic because these could be reused in a lot of ways. Here is a quick rundown on a few examples of non-ferrous metals:

• Aluminum – usually silver or white, aluminum is a metal you could easily bend if it's cut thin. These are often used for cans, window frames, and gutters. Recycling this metal saves 80% of energy that was used to make aluminum of the same amount.
• Brass – is a heavy metal that has a yellow and reddish color that are usually used for keys, light fixtures, and handles.
• Copper – one of the most sought-after metals, this is used in different kinds of things like electric wires, gutters, and plumbing pipes. These are one of the most valuable scraps you could recycle. 

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