| |
|
|
| Recycling |
| |
|
-> Copper - The World's Most Reusable Resource
|
| |
| Copper - The World's Most Reusable Resource |
| |
  For
nearly 5,000 years, copper was the only metal known to man. Today,
it's one of the most used and reused of our "modern" metals. Look
closely at the coins in your pocket and consider these bright facts
about copper:
• The copper in your coins may be as old as the pharaohs, because
copper has an infinite recyclable life. Copper, by itself or in any
of its alloys, such as brass or bronze, is used over and over again.
• Copper was first used by humans more than 10,000 years ago.
A copper pendant discovered in what is now northern Iraq has been
dated about 8700 B.C.
• Known worldwide copper resources are estimated at nearly 5.8
trillion pounds of which only about 0.7 trillion pounds (12%) have
been mined throughout history...and nearly all of that is still in
circulation, because copper's recycling rate is higher than that of
any other engineering metal.
• Each year in the U.S.A., nearly as much copper is recovered
from recycled material as is derived from newly mined ore...and when
you exclude wire production, most of which uses newly refined copper,
the amount of copper used by copper and brass mills, ingot makers,
foundries, powder plants and other industries shows that nearly three-fourths
(72%) comes from recycled copper scrap.
• More than half of this scrap is "new" scrap, such as chips
and turnings from screw machine production...the remainder is "old"
scrap, such as discarded electric cable, junked automobile radiators
or even ancient Egyptian plumbing.
• Copper's recycling value is so great that premium-grade scrap
normally has at least 95% of the value of the primary metal from newly
mined ore. |
|
|  |
|
