With so much concern about global warming over the last several years, more and more people are looking for ways to help combat the ever increasing greenhouse effect. One of the simplest and most effective steps that businesses and regular people can take to help is to participate in scrap metal recycling in Calgary. At Calgary metal recyclers and suppliers such as Federal Metals Inc., scrap metal is melted down and formed into new metal products for use in a variety of industries.
How does this help to reduce the greenhouse effect? To understand that, we first need to understand a bit about what the greenhouse effect is.
The greenhouse effect is a natural process which helps keep the earth much warmer and friendlier to life than it would otherwise be. It occurs when certain gasses in the earth’s atmosphere capture and emit thermal radiation back into the atmosphere before it has a chance to radiate away into space. The main greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide, water vapour, methane, ozone, and nitrous oxide. While these gasses all occur naturally in the atmosphere, human activity since the Industrial Revolution has significantly increased their concentrations, compounding the greenhouse effect and causing the earth to warm up.
Creating new metal products from recycled scrap metal is a far more environmentally friendly option than smelting new metals from virgin ore. The process of mining for and smelting an ore releases copious amounts of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. While recycling metal at a Calgary scrap metal recycling facility does require energy and therefore does produce some greenhouse gasses, there is simply no comparison to the energy it takes to smelt an ore.
For example, recycling aluminum takes 95% less energy than is required to smelt it. A study by the Imperial College of London calculated that producing 100,000 tons of aluminum from scrap rather than from virgin ore keeps 354,000 tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. It also takes 90% less energy to recycle copper and 56% less energy to recycle steel.
Not only does the recycling process help to reduce greenhouse gasses, but it doesn’t cause any degradation to the metal itself as well. The metal products available from metal recyclers and suppliers in Calgary have all of the same qualities as metal products from new ore. Using recycled metal is a more environmentally friendly and a more economical option for businesses and industries.
Help Fight Global Warming with Scrap Metal Recycling in Calgary
If you have a business that produces a lot of scrap metal or if you just happen to have some extra scrap lying around, then why not bring it to a scrap metal recycling facility such as Federal Metals Inc.? At Federal Metals Inc. we offer fair scrap metal prices in Calgary and we accept both ferrous and non-ferrous metals. Serving Calgary since 1950, Federal Metals Inc. is committed to doing our part to reduce the greenhouse effect.
To find out more about scrap metal and copper recycling in Calgary, just contact Federal Metals Inc. today.
