Recycling metal

[PonderInc]

Since RM mentioned in a different thread that the price of scrap metal has doubled recently, it got me thinking about all the soup cans that are going in the landfill these days.

I pay for curbside recycling, but they don't take soup cans.  Last time I checked, the MET drop-off locations don't take scrap metal either.  The metal we threw away used to be recovered from the Trash to Energy plant.  Now it's just being dumped in a landfill.

Sounds pretty goofy to me, with prices and demand going up.  What's the scoop?

[RecycleMichael]

quote:Originally posted by PonderInc

Since RM mentioned in a different thread that the price of scrap metal has doubled recently, it got me thinking about all the soup cans that are going in the landfill these days.

I pay for curbside recycling, but they don't take soup cans.  Last time I checked, the MET drop-off locations don't take scrap metal either.  The metal we threw away used to be recovered from the Trash to Energy plant.  Now it's just being dumped in a landfill.

Sounds pretty goofy to me, with prices and demand going up.  What's the scoop?

We do accept steel cans at our non-Tulsa centers, but didn't at the Tulsa locations because the trash-to-energy plant used to. The plant has now been closed for 11 months and we are making plans to add steel cans to our list of collected materials.

I discussed this last week with the city officials in charge of the curbside program to give them advanced warning. I don't know if they plan to add them or not. There are many things that drop-off programs collect that curbside programs cannot.

Steel cans are way more difficult to collect than aluminum cans. First, the price I get for aluminum is 30 times the price I get for steel. Secondly, steel cans always smell. The majority of cans we collect at the suburb locations are from dog food. Lastly, there are only a couple of places that will accept steel cans in the area compared to over a dozen locations that will buy used beverage aluminum cans.  

Our goal is to collect and recycle anything that we can get a local market for and not lose too much money. Steel will probably be a money loser for us (we have collected them for 15 years and always lost money), but we are committed to keep adding materials as we can.

Thanks for recycling.

[PonderInc]

Thanks, RM!

I can save steel cans for the MET...b/c they're not that big and I can rinse them out and crush them...and just make an occasional trip to the MET.  (In Colorado, they took steel cans, but you were supposed to rinse them, and remove the top and bottom and crush the cylinder flat...which was better for storage anyway.)

My biggest beef with the curbside service is that they don't take cardboard.  (I understand that it's a bulky item...but still!)  

Cardboard seems to procreate in my house!  Every time I turn around, another box appears!  Inside, they take up too much space...even when broken down and folded flat.  If I store them outside, they invaribly get wet and full of bugs.  

The only way I can recycle them without driving several miles is to sneak them into the cardboard dumpster behind a local business...which feels wrong.  I want to do the right thing, but sometimes it's so inconvenient, I just give up and toss them in the trash!

[RecycleMichael]

Cardboard is more difficult. I collect cardboard at two of my centers, Broken Arrow and sand Springs. I wish I could do it everywhere, but my centers are located mostly in parking lots and cardboard blows around in the Oklahoma wind. Not collecting it in my Tulsa centers is one of my biggest failures. I am working on it.

Cardboard is becomming quite valuable. I am now getting six cents a pound, which means a big box is worth as much as a quarter.

I have often taken my cardboard to a local cardboard dumpster. I don't sneak it in, I ask at places where I am a regular customer. There are over 1,000 cardboard only dumpsters in town. Every furniture store, every grocery store, almost every convenience store and restaurant have a cardboard dumpster.

[shadows]

There was a time when the soup cans were cleans and crushed and sold for scrap.   Japan taught us that when a item become broken you throw it away as it was manufactured where it could not be repaired.   To day the Japanese ride on their super light rails cars without the smell of soup as the in they past drove the price of scrap up..  

Scrap steel, prepared for adding to steel ore in the production of prime steel sold this last year for 4 cents a pound.  China has  reactivated the hundreds of mini-mills they built during the 30's

As one is aware the price of scrap copper is greater than the value of the penny coin.   Now we are using bi-metals to coin them.

The cardboard, that once was burned but could be shredded for  recycling, now has become a burden ot us to dispose of until we destroy the trees that sustain life as we know it on this planet.

But there is no need to be concerned as we are building a space station where we can move to another solar system that is  friendly to our own needs after we have depleted this one.   It is estimated one could be available around 90,000 years away in travel time.