Green Blog

Every year thousands upon thousands of tons of trash is poured into landfills. Though we are in no danger of running short on landfill space, this is expensive in terms of time, space, and energy invested, as well as the sheer waste of materials that will not be used again. With that in mind, consider these reasons to keep your aluminum and steel cans out of landfill sites by recycling them.

1. Aluminum that has been recycled is back in use again within 2 months. On the other hand, it would take 200-500 years for that metal to break down naturally if were just thrown away.

2. Recycled aluminum and steel are no different in composition from ‘new’ aluminum and steel. Recycled metals are simply melted down and then forged into new products, which can then be recycled again when they are finished being used.

3. Metal cans can be exchanged for cash at many places. Various states offer five cents for each can given to them, and some recycling centers offer between a dollar and two dollars per pound of cans recycled.

4. Recycling is not just about material savings, but also about energy consciousness. Each aluminum can recycled saves enough energy to run a television for 3 hours.

5. The 100,000,000 ‘new’ steel cans produced every day contain 25% recycled materials. That is the equivalent of 25 million reclaimed cans vs. 75 million completely new cans. If more people recycled, that number would soon become 50-50 and a great deal of energy and resources would be saved.

6. There are multiple can-crushing machines available that can be used to make the job easier, including some that can be made at home for almost no cost. This removes the a commonly used excuse that recycling cans takes up too much space within your home.

For more information about can crushers please visit http://www.cancrusher.org.uk