Interesting facts

  • Of an estimated total of 700 million tonnes of aluminium produced in the world since commercial manufacturing began, about 75% is still in productive use.

  • Producing steel from recycled material when compared with virgin resources provides energy saving of 75%.

  • Recycling aluminium requires only 5% of the energy it takes to make new aluminium - and produces only 5% of the CO2 emissions.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminium every three months to rebuild the UK's entire commercial air fleet.

  • Aluminium is the highest recyclable material used in beverage packaging, with recycled content of 68%.

  • The aluminium from an aluminium can, when recycled, can be back on the shelf in as little as 60 days.

  • Some 34 cans can be made from just one pound of aluminium.

  • Metal extraction alone had increased 200% since 1980, and supplies of certain virgin resources - notably antimony, copper, gold, silver, tin and zinc - are expected to be exhausted within the next 60 years.

  • Every year the metals sector produces: 14 million tonnes of steel; 1.2 million tonnes of castings; 500,000 tonnes of aluminium. It reclaims and processes 10 million tonnes of used or end-of-life metals.

  • The metals sector is at the forefront of innovation. 70% of steels used in automotive applications did not exist 10 years ago. 15% of a modern commercial aircraft is made from specially-developed steels.

  • Approximately 96% of all aluminium from buildings in Europe is collected for recycling.

  • Aluminium is the 2nd most used metal in the world.

  • If every kilogram of heavier material is replaced with aluminum, it eliminates 22 Kg of carbon-di-oxide, over the life time of a vehicle.

  • In the automobile industry, by substituting steel for high strength low weight aluminum, every 10% weight reduction would save about 5 to 7 % of fuel.

  • Vehicles manufactured in the year of 2006, with aluminum parts, are to save around 140 million tons of carbon-di-oxide & saving energy equivalent to 16 billion gallons of crude oil over the entire life span.

  • Lead-acid batteries, a primary use for lead, have a 97% recycling rate.

  • On average, the U.S. processes enough ferrous scrap daily, by weight, to build 25 Eiffel Towers every day of the year.

  • Steel is the world's most recycled material.

  • Without aluminium recycling, the EU would have to import about 8.4 million tonnes of primary and recycled aluminium to meet productions requirements.

  • The UK metals recycling industry is worth £5.6 billion (2012)

  • Globally over 400 million tonnes of metals are recycled each year (2012)

  • The UK recycles 13 million tonnes of scrap metal a year, of which around 40% is used in the domestic market, and 60% is exported.

  • The UK is in the top five countries in the world in terms of volume of scrap metal exports.

  • US scrap industry is valued at $60 billion (2010)

  • US processes about 74 million metric tons of scrap steel (2010)

  • Scrap steel is used to produce over 75 percent of raw steel in the US

  • Metal can be recycled unlimited times. Paper can be recycled four to seven times. (ISRI)

  • The aluminium life cyle is 10-20 years in transport and 50-80 years in construction.

  • The EU aluminium recycling rate is more than 90% in transport and construction and more than 55% in packaging (over 90% in beverage cans).

  • Today, recycling of post-consumer aluminium products saves over 90 million of CO2 and over 100,000 gigawatt-hours of electrical energy, equivalent to the annual power consumption of the Netherlands.

  • Steel recycling is responsible for saving some 900 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year. (BIR)

  • Only around 1 billion of the 4 billion tonnes of waste produced globally each year was destined for recycling, energy recovery, composting or some other positive use. (BIR)

  • In the UK 10 million tonnes of metal is recycled each year, including 2 million vehicles, 3.5 million white goods and 2 billion steel cans.

  • China is the world's second-largest user of steel scrap after the EU.

  • Global waste generation is likely to more than double to approach 10 billion tonnes by 2030.

  • Europe is exporting 1 million metric tonnes of aluminium scrap or the equivalent 10TWh of energy to overseas recyclers annually.

  • World's aluminium demand is expected to increase by 76% by 2020.

  • There is about 20 billion MT of scrap iron worldwide and global consumption is 535 million annually.

  • Recycled material supplies 40% of global raw material needs (BIR)

  • Chinese steel mills consume on average 140kg of scrap when making a tonne of steel. (BIR 2011)

  • Recycling one tonne of paper saves 17 trees, 300 litres of oil, 26500 litres of water and 2525 litres of landfill. (ISRI)

  • Recycling one tonne of steel conserves 1134 kgs of iron ore, 635 kgs. of coal and 55kgs. of limestone. (ISRI)

  • Recycling one tonne of aluminium conserves up to 8 tonnes bauxite ore and 14 megawatt hours of energy. (ISRI)

  • One metric tonne of electronic scrap from personal computers contains more gold than that recovered from 17 tonnes of gold ore (ISRI)

  • 41 mobile telephones contain the same amount of gold as a ton of gold ore

  • Nonferrous metals do not lose their chemical or physical properties in the recycling process, allowing to be recycled an infinite amount of times

  • Recycling one aluminium can saves enough energy to run a TV for 2 hours.

  • Recycling 1 glass of bottle can power a computer for 30 minutes.

  • Recycling 1 ton of mixed paper can save the energy equals to 185 gallons of petrol.

  • Recycling just 500 phone books could save 7000 gallons of water.

  • By recycling only 1 plastic bottle you could light a 60 watt bulb for 6 hours.

  • When a ton of steel is recycled 1400 pounds of coal is conserved.

  • 1 tonne of recycled aluminium saves: 1 square meter of land use, 24 barrels of crude oil equivalent of energy, 5 tonnes of fresh water, 9 tonnes of CO2 & 2.5 tonnes of solid waste

 

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