Casey Fenton
The expression goes, “Out with the old and in with the new.” But what happens to the old? Is it forgotten? Is it no longer our problem because we’re too busy focusing on our ‘new’? There was a time where the old wasn’t much of a priority, but when it comes to steel recycling, the old is vital in creating the new.
As long as steel has been made, there has been steel recycling. Steel prides itself on being North America’s #1 most recycled material today. In fact, more steel scrap is recycled annually than paper, plastic, aluminum and glass combined. Reaching this point has come from a long history of efforts to build a stable and strong recycling infrastructure. It was the building of this infrastructure that gave steel the ability to go from “recyclable” to “recycled.”
“A lot of products claim to be recyclable, but some may experience some shortfall in actual recycling,” explains Gregory L. Crawford, Executive Director of the Steel Recycling Institute. “Steel has always been recyclable but it wasn’t until an infrastructure was built did it become truly recycled. Recycled is where you want to be.”
Truly Recycled Material
A truly recycled material also repeats the same process continuously with minimum to no waste. For something to be truly ‘recyclable’, by definition, it must pass through the same process from which it came. For example, with steel recycling when they make a batch, the mills know they will see that steel again if it is recycled at the end of their useful life regardless of the product it is made into, it will return as scrap. Even during the production process, there is ‘runaround scrap’ that is generated at the mill while cutting and shaping steel for varying uses. They run this extra steel back to the beginning to further eliminate waste.
The term ‘recycling’ has been broadened, unnecessarily, to include materials that are recyclable but not yet properly recycled. Terms such as reuse, recover, reduce and others should be used instead, as appropriate. For example, when rubber from a tire is no longer usable it can be shredded and made into a high school track or padding for a playground. It could also be tied to a tree and made into a swing. Both of these are examples to avoid the landfill, however both are more accurately described as ‘reuse’ rather than recycling.
Also, wood can be recut, refinished, reused as long as the material can handle it. However, wood cannot be made into new wood. This is the barrier of entry into the truest definition of recycling.
Each product or material promotes and provides education for it’s responsible disposal method. These plans are formulated based on several factors such as the best available technology, most cost, beneficial method and existing infrastructure to collect the product. The effort to minimize the impact on the environment is a noble and necessary effort and all materials are on the same team in wanting this goal. Through continued innovations and technologies, the recyclability of each material will someday expand to a point where they each can be efficiently recycled but, for now, it is important to remember that true recycling isn’t accomplished simply by collecting it at a curbside or drop-off—that is only one part of the whole process.
Steel Recycling Industry
There is an entire industry dedicated towards that process of true recycling and it involves huge corporations, down to the local citizens, resulting in millions of direct and indirect jobs. If tomorrow everybody decided to stop, ignoring the huge environmental disaster, there would be a tremendous amount of people who couldn’t support themselves or their families.
The reason that an industry exists is because there is both a need in the manufacturing of new products and it is a profitable endeavor if run successfully. In the aggregate, steel cans make economic sense to collect, ship melt, and manufacture. Volume and efficiency are key. You recover that recycling cost by offsetting the expense of new materials, natural resources or energy. Demolition companies can also offset their overall costs by selling steel to processors. Similarly, households have options to receive rebates in many States when they responsibly take old appliances out of service for steel recycling. These rebates can be used to purchase new, more efficient EnergyStar appliances.
The most obvious and publicized reason for actual recycling is the benefit to the environment. It should be simpler and more efficient in terms of energy, water and natural resource conservation to create new product materials by using older versions of the same material, product or another. We’re removing the dead weight and volume of no longer useful, old scrapped products, and through, whatever process the material demands, creating something that is once again useful and, often times, more efficient than its predecessor. This also keeps that dead weight and volume out of our increasingly scarce landfill space.
The steel recycling industry is a continuous cycle that relies upon each part to keep the next part going. The lifecycle of a material is often referred to as cradle to grave, but for truly recyclable materials such as steel, which are recycled through the same process they’re created, cradle to cradle describes it more accurately.
Steel Recycling Lifecycle
Roughly speaking, there are four basic steps of that lifecycle. It begins with those who accumulate the scrap, those who transport it, those who receive delivery for sorting and grading until finally the mill that turns that so-called scrap back into product materials the original users want to purchase.
Consumers are the donors to the curbside recycling bin and their recyclables are a charitable donation to Mother Earth. Households generally recycle for reasons other than making money. In commercial and industrial sources they are working with bigger scrap quantities, so they accumulate enough value to become sellers. Demolition companies offset some costs by recycling old materials once a building is leveled. It has become practically required in the industry to recycle materials to save these costs and promoted by entities such as the U.S. Green Building Council. It would be more accurate to refer to some elements of the industry as ‘deconstruction’ because the same care and importance is placed on materials taking the building down, as there is putting it up. These companies know that getting paid to sell this scrap is a no brainer when the alternative is paying someone else to haul it to a landfill which charges its local tipping fee, on top of the hauling.
Now that these materials are collected and transported through a solid waste company from a blue bin or drop-off to a Material Recovery Facility (MRF), all the recyclables are loaded on to a sorting line. Different methods of sorting the varying materials come into play now. If it is a single stream source, as are most now, the materials must be separated at the facility. The method for steel products is magnetic separation. Steel food containers and empty steel aerosol cans, like all steel products, are magnetically attracted. Virtually all MRF’s have magnetic belts which are used to easily and efficiently separate this valuable steel scrap. Once sorted, the steel cans fall into a large bin, then are baled. “A successful recycling coordinator is the one that can facilitate cooperation between the first three stages to create a successful opportunity in the fourth,” says Crawford. The best success comes when the market is balanced across all steps. When the desire for steel products rises, companies will require more steel scrap to meet this demand. If their need rises, so will their willingness to pay more.
Since the entire industry relies on one another so closely, it is mostly self-regulating. When scrap prices are high, the collectors and processors are profiting but the mills are being forced to pay more. When prices are low, the mills are able to buy more for less, which encourages increased production and lower costs so companies are more willing to buy steel. But now, the collectors and processors are less motivated to sell their scrap, and will sometimes sit on quantities until the price is more favorable. Both sides benefit as the market is automatically, over time, balanced.
Growth and Education
Despite the continued success of steel recycling, there are still opportunities for growth. One of the biggest opportunities comes from empty steel aerosol cans. This valuable source of steel scrap suffers from misconceptions and myths about containing chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) propellants. The truth is that CFCs have been banned since the 1970s and an exhaustive report showed that when aerosol cans are recycled, they are not just empty but very empty. Consumers buy these products to use them to the last spray and are eager to recycle them safely and successfully. The biggest problem for personal care aerosol products is also that the bathroom, where many aerosol products are kept, is further away from the kitchen and curbside bin, so consumers need to literally take that extra step. Recycling programs that already accept steel cans may begin accepting empty steel aerosol cans immediately as they are indistinguishable in a single stream. The magnetic belt will aggregate them both and keep this valuable scrap out of the landfill.
The biggest way to continue improving the industry is through education. The Steel Recycling Institute (SRI) offers a series of curricula that spans Kindergarten through 12th grade certified and available for free on the AISI website (steel.org) through the steel store. SRI also recently launched a completely new children’s website Roscoe’s Recycle Room (recycleroom.org) where kids can play games, submit their own recycling stories, learn fun facts and more.
Since SRI’s beginning in 1988, it has been a strong, contributing factor in the building of the current recycling infrastructure for steel cans, as well as other household items, such as appliances. Some major recycling is also accomplished unseen, as giant shredders render old cars into valuable auto shred for making all kinds of steel products, such as construction materials. SRI continues to educate, inform and promote the benefits and necessities of recycling.
A youthful enthusiasm that can be attracted through education will continue to strengthen an already thriving recycling industry. As members of the industry gain more experience, the ability to pass that knowledge down to new, young, professionals will create a depth of talent that will increase recycling rates, company bottom lines and a stronger infrastructure for many years to come. SRI and other professionals will maybe one day update the expression into a more steel recycling appropriate, “In with the old, and out with the new.”
Casey Fenton is the Communication Assistant for the Steel Recycling Institute (Pittsburgh, PA). He has been working on behalf of the environmental advancements of the North American steel industry since 2010. Casey works along with communicators from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and the Steel Market Development Institute to facilitate grassroots, communication efforts, working with both the public and private sectors to provide awareness of steel’s recycling accomplishments and sustainable advancements. He can be reached at (412) 922-2772, ext. 248 or via e-mail at [email protected].