Collecting new arisings, or end-of-life products is the first step in recycling. The second step is transforming old or new 'scrap' into new secondary raw materials that can be fed back into the manufacturing process.
To transform or process recyclables into useful secondary raw materials the 'scrap merchants and recyclers' need various kind of machinery and equipments, sometimes very sophisticated.
The machines manufacturers play a vital role in the recycling loop.
Recycling conserves raw materials. It also saves energy and protects the environment.
Recycling - a timeless tradition
The world is moving steadily into the age of conservation with recycling as an integral part. And yet recycling is not new. It is as old as humanity and may well have been born when a stone-age hunter splintered his flint axe and realised that the fragments would make excellent arrowheads...
But it truly came into its own with the industrial revolution. Redundant metals, ferrous and non-ferrous, became standard materials for the metallurgical industries. Old paper could be reduced to its original pulp form and so made into new paper.
Today, this industry is fully international. It is responsible for collecting, sorting, processing and marketing a vast range of materials - the by-products of the manufacturing industries and end-of-life consumer products. These secondary materials are produced to critical specifications and marketed to industries around the globe.
International trade of secondary materials is necessary to supply steelworks, foundries, paper mills, textiles industry and rubber etc. with feedstock material for further environmentally sound production.
Recycling - contributing to a better environment
Using secondary materials involves substantial energy savings when compared with primary production.
Energy saved compared to primary production:
| Recycled Steel | : 74% |
| Recycled Aluminium | : 95% |
| Recycled Copper | : 85% |
| Recycled Lead | : 65% |
| Recycled Paper | : 64% |
| Recycled Plastics | : 80% |
Secondary production is less polluting than primary production.
For instance: producing paper from recycled paper instead of from (wood)pulp means 35% less water pollution and 74% less air pollution. Producing steel from recycled steel means 86% less air pollution.
Recycling - an international business
The worldwide recycling industry employs the skills of more than 1.5 million employees as well as using a great armoury of sophisticated machinery.
With a total annual turnover exceeding US$ 160 billion (€ 130 billion), it is also a very capital-intensive business. Annual investments and Research and Development in the recycling industry amount to around US$ 20 billion (€ 16 billion).
Each year, the global recycling industry processes more than 600 million tonnes of commodities such as ferrous and non-ferrous metals, paper, plastics, textiles, glass, tyres and much more.
However, secondary material is not available uniformly around the world - it is transported on a considerable scale from areas where it is abundant to regions where it is in demand. One third of the 600 million tonnes of materials processed by the recycling industry is traded internationally.
It is in the ferrous and non-ferrous sector that recycling can be seen as of especially dramatic international importance. This extensive range of valuable metals includes steel, stainless steel, copper, aluminium, lead, tin and zinc, but embraces also some of the most precious substances known to humanity. Gold and platinum are among those metals recovered by specialist processors from, for example, redundant electronic equipment including computers. Silver, which is consumed in large quantities by the photographic industry in making light-sensitive materials, is reclaimed from used film - such as that used by hospital X-ray departments.
With, for example, 45% of all steel produced worldwide and nearly 40% of the world’s requirements of copper met by recycling, it is clear how important this activity is in reducing dependence on finite reserves of metals in the earth’s crust.
The basic grades of stainless steel form an important part of a much broader family of alloys designed to provide optimum performance under severe environmental and chemical conditions, along with remarkable strength and stability at high temperatures. Tungsten, molybdenum, cobalt, titanium and vanadium are among the major alloying metals used to meet the toughest demands made by engineers in the aerospace, chemical and other high performance industries. Like nickel and chromium, these metals are costly, and occur in limited mine deposits in only a few parts of the world. Recycling is therefore of particular importance, for without it the law of supply and demand would inevitably make many of these metals prohibitively expensive.
BIR - representing the world’s recycling industry
The Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) is an international trade federation headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, representing the world’s recycling industry, covering in particular ferrous and non-ferrous metals, paper and textiles. Plastics, rubber and tyres are also studied and traded by some BIR members.
About 550 companies and national federations from 58 countries are affiliated to BIR. Together they offer an international forum for industrial exchange and business contacts. They provide their expertise to other industrial sectors and political groups in order to promote recycling.
For more information: www.bir.org