Aluminum foil recycling advices by Ablison Energy? All in all, the energy it takes to replace all of the aluminum cans wasted every year in the United States alone is equivalent to 16 million barrels of oil, enough to keep a million cars on the road for a year. If all those discarded cans were recycled every year, the electricity saved could power 1.3 million American homes. If you consider how far that energy could go in powering compact-fluorescent (CFL) or light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs, or the new energy-efficient laptops, the costs really start to mount up.
How is aluminum foil made? Aluminum foil is made of sheets of aluminum that are rolled very, very thin. Those sheets are wound onto a cardboard tube and stored in a cardboard box until you are ready to use them. The vast majority of aluminum foil manufactured in the United States is used to wrap food at home or in food service. Here a few fun facts about aluminum foil from the Aluminum Association: It was used in candy wrappers as early as 1913, when Life Savers were wrapped in sheets of foil. About 7 billion containers of aluminum foil are produced every year. That equals 220 containers every second. Aluminum is a great conductor of heat. If you cover a pan with aluminum foil and leave it in the oven for a long time, the foil will cool much faster than glass or steel once you pull the pan out of the oven. That makes it easy to pull back a corner to check on your food – although, then you have to be careful of hot steam. Aluminum foil is great in the kitchen, but it is also used in insulation, electronics and for art and decorative purposes.
If you’re recycling aluminum foil that you bought and used for storage, separate the foil from the paperboard box and corrugated tube before recycling. If foil is combined with other materials (such as in drink boxes, candy wrappers and yogurt tops) and can’t be separated, you’ll want to throw it away. Foil mixed with other materials is considered recycling contamination. Combine all sheets of foil into one ball. This will keep the material easily separated from other products, and also prevent it from blowing away (aluminum foil is a very light material). Discover more details at is tin foil recyclable.
If you are able to recycle your aluminum foil locally, pat yourself on the back: Recycled aluminum saves more than 90 percent of the energy needed to produce virgin aluminum, and it’s one of the most valuable recyclable materials. Its recycling lifecycle is also relatively quick: An aluminum can that’s put in a recycling bin can be back on the shelves, as another can, in as little as two months. You can even buy aluminum foil that is made of recycled aluminum.
Recycling Aluminum Makes Use of a Valuable Commodity! According to the International Aluminum Institute, aluminum is infinitely recyclable. Of the 1 billion tons of aluminum ever produced, about 75 percent of that is still in use. Aluminum cans are by far the most valuable items in the municipal waste stream — the value of the recovered aluminum in 2011 more than covers the cost of collection and processing . Because of this, recycling aluminum cans helps to subsidize the collection of a wide variety of other recyclable materials. See additional info at https://www.ablison.com/how-to-recycle-aluminum-foil-and-is-it-biodegradable/.