What Products are Made with Steel?

Appliances: Sometimes referred to as “white goods”, appliances are systems of mechanical and electrical components encased in steel shells or bodies. Appliances THAT WE BUY include washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, ranges, and water heaters. By weight, the typical appliance consists of about 65 percent steel.

Automobiles: By weight, the typical passenger car consists of nearly 66 percent steel and iron. The steel used in car bodies is made with a minimum of 25 percent recycled steel.

Construction Materials: Steel beams and steel plate are a main constituent of construction materials.

What are the Benefits of Recycling Steel?

• Improve Your Organization’s Image: By using fewer resources and reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills and incinerators, a company may enhance its customer and community image.
• Divert Material from Disposal: Keeping steel out of the waste stream saves valuable landfill space.
• Conserve Natural Resources: Every ton of steel recycled saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal, and 120 pounds of limestone.
• Save Energy: Each year, steel recycling saves the energy equivalent to electrically power about one-fifth of the households in the United States (or about 18 million homes) for one year.

Why Recycle Your Automobile?

Automobiles simply are not landfilled because about 65 percent of the weight of the average car is comprised of steel and iron-metals valuable to the steel industry. Instead, the steel and iron are recovered for either
reuse in other automobiles or for recycling into new steel at a steel mill.

What many people think of as their local junkyard is actually where the recycling process for the automobile begins. Even a car in the very worst of shape may still contain some valuable working parts that can be reused in other vehicles. There are more than 12,000 auto dismantlers throughout North America reselling automobile parts.

Auto dismantlers also perform a valuable service: they prepare a vehicle for recycling by removing its battery, gas tank, refrigerant gases from the air conditioner, and all of its fluids. Once these have been removed, the hulk of the car can be flattened and delivered to a ferrous scrap dealer. for more information please read this PDF brochure

Information gathered from the Steel Recycling Institute.

Facts
& Figures:

• Each new steel product is made in part from post-consumer recycled steel. So each time you buy a steel product, you’re closing the recycling loop by buying recycled.
• Steel’s magnetic attraction makes it one of the easiest materials to recycle.
• Recycling just one car saves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal, and 120 pounds of limestone.
• Because of their steel and iron content virtually every car taken off the road today is recycled 
• It takes about 45 seconds to shred the average automobile into fist-sized pieces of steel for recycling.
• The automobile is the most recycled consumer product in the world today. 
• The steel found in just six cars, when recycled, is enough to build a brand new house, using steel framing.
• Using recycled steel to make new steel saves energy. In fact, the steel industry saves enough energy in one year to electrically power 18 million homes for one year.
• It takes an entire tree to make a typical wood pole; one scrapped car produces more than four steel poles.
• Steel is one of the few materials you can purchase that is guaranteed to be recycled, and it can be recycled repeatedly without loss of quality or strength.

Information obtained form the Steel Recycling Institute