What Happens To The Recycled Aluminum Cans After We Take Them To Our Nearest Recycler?
How, exactly are the cans recycled after we have took them too our nearest recycling center? After collection and processing the aluminum cans they are loaded and shipped by truck, railcar or sea container to smelting plants. The bales of cans are unloaded and tested for quality and moisture content. After inspection, the bales of cans are broken up in a shredder into small pieces. These shredded cans are then conveyed into a De-laquering oven to remove the paint and residual moisture. The hot shredded aluminum is then passed over a small screen to remove any dirt and contaminants and fed directly into a reverbatory furnace. A mixture of salt and KFI are added as a flux to help seperate out any oxides(dross) that are skimmed off. Molten aluminum is checked for proper chemistry and then tapped (removed) from the furnace and poured into large molds that cast sheet ingots. These large rectangular ingots (20 to 40,000 lbs each) are allowed to cool and harden. When they are needed, the top and bottom surface of the sheet ingot is milled to a smooth surface in a process caled “Scalping”. The scalped ingnot is then passed between two giant steel rollers in a large rolling mill. The sheet is passed through a few more times until it is about an 1/2 inch thick and maybe a thousand feet long. This long sheet is then annealed to soften it and passed to a series of rollers to a finishing mill where it aquires the necessary hardness and thickness. The edges are trimmed in a slitter and the coil is rolled up for shipment to a can manufacturer. the finished coil may be 2 miles long and made from over 1.2 million recycled cans. If not properly recycled, an aluminum can will still be on the surface of the earth after 500 years. Aluminum recycling can reduce air pollution by 95%. It can save 90% to 95% of the energy required to manufacture aluminum from recycled aluminum cans than from aluminum core.                         If each person would recycles one aluminum can each month, 1,750 to 3,500 gallons of gas can be saved.                 By: Heather Browning, Heathers Feathers!!!
Posted on 8th July 2008
Under: Air Pollution, Aluminum, Aluminum Cans, Aluminum Sheet, Gas, Recycle, Recycling, Scalping, Smelting, Smelting Plants | No Comments »