Friday, August 9, 2013

Explaining Can Recycling Sacramento Area

By Andrea Davidson


As people go about their daily lives some will have noticed the blue bins situated around the region. These are provided as receptacles for people to put their recyclables in, instead of leaving them mixed in with the normal trash. All of this will assist with ensuring that the natural resources will last a lot longer. Just think how you could participate in a can recycling Sacramento program.

Many people are surprised to find that what they are throwing out as trash most of it can be recycled. As a small mental exercise try thinking about just how many food and drink cans you toss out each week. Now that number needs multiplying by 52, so even a conservative 10 a week soon becomes 520 a year. Just think how many that would be if your whole street tossed the same number as food and drink cans as you.

It is quite easy to see how one simple activity can make such a difference. Cans will either be made from steel or aluminium, and the easy way to tell the difference is with something as simple as a fridge magnet. If the magnet sticks to it then it is steel, and if it doesn't it is aluminium.

A sobering thought is that every year Americans trash over 50 billion cans. Someone has calculated that as being enough metal to construct 13 carriers for the Navy. If you were to look at direct energy savings, then if 4 soda cans were recycled the energy value saved would be enough to operate a washer machine for an hour. Even just 1 recycled can would save as much energy as you would use playing a whole album on an MP3 player.

So the first step begins with you. Imagine that you have just finished a can of soda, and have placed it in the blue bin. These blue bins are emptied on a regular basis and the collection of aluminium cans is taken to a central collection point. When there are sufficient they are then transported to a treatment plant, to begin the next stage of their journey.

Your soda can, along with all of the others, will now undergo various tests. If it passes as a high enough quality it then gets cut up into small pieces. These small pieces are then heat treated to remove the logos and branding from the exterior surface.

When the painted surface has been removed even more heat is applied. The bits of your soda can are now in a molten mass with all of the other bits from other soda cans. This molten metal is then poured to make solid bars of aluminium. These bars of aluminium are then rolled out into flat sheets which the manufacturer finds easier to create a new soda can.

So by a small bit of time and effort on an individual's part a big difference can be made. To make things easier steel cans should be separated from aluminium cans. In the interests of hygiene it also helps if the cans are washed out before they get left in the blue bins.. It is easy to help the environment by becoming involved with a can recycling Sacramento scheme.




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