Recycling aluminium...?

Question

Why is recycling aluminium a good idea?

Answer 1

It sure would make our planet a cleaner and healthier place, for all of us, by reducing the amount of trash daily, especially those beer and soda cans with 5 or 10 cents marked on top of them, I always redeem them while I head to the supermarket.

Answer 2

Not just alluminum, everything

Answer 3

Just using aluminum can products as an example:

* Recycling aluminum uses 95% less energy than making new aluminum.  The energy saved can power a TV for three hours!

* You can help the environment one can at a time.

* Aluminum is the most recycled beverage container.

* Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can be part of a new can within 60 days.

* There is no limit to the amount of times aluminum can be recycled.

* We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum soda cans every year.

* The recycling industry employs tens of thousands of people.

* Money from aluminum can recycling goes toward building more Habitat for Humanity homes!

Answer 4

Because Aluminium does not occur naturally as metal- it has to be extracted from Bauxite.  This is an incredibly expensive process (in energy and therefore money terms).  

Bauxite needs to be transported for miles away.

Anglesey Aluminium is placed on Holy Island so it has easy access to atomic power and the port of Holyhead.  This is because of the need to import Bauxite and the vast amount of electricity needed.

If you recycle aluminium, you just need to melt it down and reform into ingots.  This takes much less electricity. Even taking into account the energy and effort required to collect all that scrap aluminium, we are much better off.  It also causes less polution.

Also if we don't recycle Aluminium gets thrown away.  It doesn't rot, it just stays there in landfill as a nuisance for future generations.

Answer 5

Because it takes an enormous amount of energy to make new aluminum.  And much less to recycle old.

When it was discovered aluminum was terrifically expensive.  The very richest people had forks of aluminum instead of gold.

Later, when practical processes made it easier to make, in the US aluminum plants were built in the Northwest, near cheap hydroelectric power.

Answer 6

its a good material to make stuff from!

Answer 7

It is the most common element in the earth(I have been told) depends what you want to make with it, pots and Pans? During WW2 there was a big demand for Aluminium but it was not a high enough grade to make aircraft so the scrap drive for ally was just a morale thing

Answer 8

Because it saves energy and reduces pollution.

Mining the ore uses a lot of energy and makes a lot of mess.  Refining the ore does the same.  Throwing used aluminium away without recycling makes a mess.

So, for the sake of your children and grandchildren reduce your purchases, re-use what can be re-used and recycle want can not be re-used.

Best wishes

Answer 9

cash-  50c/pound where I live now.

Answer 10

it's not watch penn and teller's bullshit show on recycling...

Answer 11

Because it takes a very great amount of electrical energy to produce it in the first place from bauxite (the ore it is made from). Also it is comparatively easy to re-cycle.

Answer 12

Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to;

-run your TV for 3 hours

-keep a 100-watt bulb running for four hours

Tossing away an aluminum can wastes as much energy as pouring out half of that can’s volume of gasoline.

Making new aluminum cans from used cans takes 95 percent less energy and 20 recycled cans can be made with the energy needed to produce one can using virgin ore.

Answer 13

Here @  Save a can, we appreciate any form of recycing. Every time we utilise these systems, we reduce landfill space. This eliminates fouling of our beautiful country-side, which belongs all living creatures on ( mans? ) earth. Hoping this helps, Seasons Greetings.

Answer 14

Besides that which applies to the recycling of other metals, aluminium recycling is better than using newly refined aluminium because aluminium is refined using a very polluting chemical known as cryolite, and uses hydroelectric power in remote areas which is generated by building dams and flooding large areas of countryside.