Urban mining is the process of recycling compounds and elements from products, buildings, and waste which would otherwise be left to decay in landfills. There are various reasons why urban mining is important to the sustainability of the planet, the most significant are:
· Reducing landfill
· Less industrial waste
· Less carbon emissions
· Conventional mining pollutes and destroys the environment
· Conserves natural resources
Recycled Metals and Their Roles in Urban Mining
Urban mining is significant because steel and aluminum is limitless when it comes to recycling. Metals recycling is the most profitable and popular style of recycling in the United States. Scrap metal can be classified in two ways: ferrous metals (steel and iron) and non-ferrous metals (mainly tin, brass, copper, aluminum, and zinc).
Most household appliances are created from metals, such as:
· Dishwashers
· Washers & Dryers
· Stoves & Ovens
· Microwaves
· Refrigerators
· Freezers
One great benefit of recycling metal is that they can be infinitely recycled without losing any properties of the metal itself. Thus, metal is a prized product. Even when a metal item expires, it still retains 100% of the material necessary to create a new metal. The most ordinary metals in everyday household items are steel and aluminum. Furthermore, steel creates food containers while aluminum creates soft drink containers.
Advantages of Recycling
Recycling metal protects the planet from needless mining and reduces pollution caused by overproduction. Additionally, it is more energy efficient. So, next time you are thinking about throwing away something in your home; understand that it is most likely made of metal and completely recyclable. Ferrous metals have huge amounts of iron.
Similarly, steel and iron recycling is the most plentiful and profitable. Furthermore, all the scrap including the shaving left from production to red beams are collected and re-melted. These metals along with cars, trains, ships, silos are fully recyclable. However, smelting raw iron can be toxic to the Earth. Re-smelting is much better because it cuts carbon emissions dramatically.
Not only that, but also the process is simpler. Since processing purifies the metals, it gives it an edge over its raw iron counterparts. Next is non-ferrous metals, which have hardly any iron. 40% of all metals recycled around the world are copper, aluminum, lead, and tin. Furthermore, non-ferrous recycling has existed for nearly a century. As a result, there is less pollution, as well as less energy loss in production.
Aluminum and the Process
Moreover, aluminum cans were established in 1965. Because of aluminums recyclability, it is very popular in America. The element provides community, environmental, and economic advantages. For instance, conservation of natural resources, energy, and income. Furthermore, it only takes a couple of months for an aluminum can be reprocessed into a new one. Then, it returns to the store for resale. In 2007, 54 billion aluminum cans were recycled. Not only does this process benefit the environment, but also the economy as well.
There are four stages of recycling:
1. Collecting
2. Processing (where metal is compressed)
3. Shredding
4. Selling
Recycling requires 74% less energy than raw materials and is significant when discussing urban mining.
Even More About Urban Mining
Each year, new technology is sold in the market that captures consumers’ attention. Providing them an incentive to throw away their devices for the latest and greatest products.
Most of the time, old electronics end up in the trash despite their recyclability. Furthermore, the demand for recycling increases as more and more electronic waste is produced. Policies and the emerging recycling industry may be the solution. Think of a group of miners taking apart outdated electronics for their power supplies. This is referred to as “urban mining.” Also, an emerging industry, urban mining comprises essentially anything that is recyclable.
Everything that can be taken out of a landfill falls within the scope of this process. There are materials found that are more valuable than any goldmine in our cities. In fact, there could be even some in your pocket right now. No, not gold rings or jewelry, we are talking about electronic devices.
These Days, we live in an age of abundance. In which we willingly throw away electronics when a new one comes out. This model leaves a lot of salvageable materials in the form of old tech. Does anyone use phones from past a decade ago? If so, do you think anyone would buy such and old thing? In fact, there is. Not because they plan to use it as it, but rather, to recycle it for the valuable materials used to produce it. With the price of minerals being so high, now is a better time than ever to begin urban mining.
Two Reasons to Recycle
Furthermore, there are two ecological reasons to recycle your phone. First, there are only so many resources in the world. If we keep using them, soon there will be none left.
While technology is changing the way we live, there is only a finite amount of resources to produce it. Second, if you throw away your phone then you are adding to the mountains of existing waste. It is much more efficient to give this old tech, new life.
What are the Nonferrous Metals?
Considering non-ferrous metals do not have iron; they are typically more resilient to rust than ferrous metals. They lack iron, steel, and magnetic properties. For example, copper, nickel, aluminum, brass, lead, tin, zinc, and more.
Non-ferrous metals are perfect for urban mining. Furthermore, there are versatile metals that lack iron. For instance, gold, chromium, tungsten, silver, zirconium, mercury, cobalt, bismuth, cadmium, beryllium and more. They are impressionable with a higher resistance to corrosion. Road signs and window frames are made with this material to reduce rust.
A simple way to determine if something contains iron is hold a magnet up to it. If the magnet sticks, it has iron or steel. If it does not, then it is most likely a non-ferrous metal.
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