Have you ever wondered how scrap metal gets recycled? Melting old metal down and making it into new products significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. It also saves energy and natural resources

Did you know? You can run a 60-watt light bulb for over a day on the amount of energy saved by recycling 1 pound of steel. In one year, steel recycling saves enough energy to heat and light 18,000,000 homes! Every ton of recycled steel saves over 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,000 pounds of coal, and more than 40 pounds of limestone.

So How Is Scrap Metal Recycled?

1. First, we collect all types of scrap metal and appliances at our Regional Recycling centers.
2. We purchase non-ferrous scrap metals like aluminum, brass, copper, lead, stainless steel or zinc at most of our depots.
3. While we do accept steel for recycling, we do not purchase it. (Use the magnet test to determine whether your scrap metal is worth any money. With even a hint of magnetic attraction, there is steel in the metal and it may not be worth much.)
4. We send large quantities of metal to our sister company, Pacific Metals.
5. Pacific Metals then sorts, separates, and packs these different types of metals into bales and send them to a smelter.
6. The refined metal creates metal bricks call ingots.
7. Finally, using the ingots, mills create different parts for manufacturing plants to assemble into new products.