The Benefits of Aluminum Recycling

如果甚至遥不可及地球上的任何人造物品比塑料袋更加无处不在，则必须是铝制罐。但是，与危险海洋生物和垃圾塑料袋不同，铝罐实际上对环境有益。beplay体育官网电脑至少，如果像您和我这样的人会花时间回收它们。

So why recycle aluminum? Well, as a starting point for answering that question, how about this: Aluminum recycling provides many beplay体育官网电脑environmental, economic and community benefits; it saves energy, time, money and precious natural resources; and it generates jobs and helps to pay for community services that make life better for millions of people.

How serious is the problem?

More than 100 billion aluminum cans are sold in the United States each year, but less than half are recycled. A similar number of aluminum cans in other countries are also incinerated or sent to landfills.

That adds up to about 1.5 million tons of wasted aluminum cans worldwide every year. All of those trashed cans have to be replaced with new cans made entirely from virgin materials, which wastes energy and causes extensive beplay体育官网电脑environmental damage.

如何回收铝会损害环境beplay体育官网电脑

在全球范围内，铝制行业每年发出数百万吨温室气体such as carbon dioxide, which contributes to全球暖化。Although aluminum cans represent only 1.4% of a ton of garbage by weight, according to the Container Recycling Institute, they account for 14.1% of the greenhouse gas impacts associated with replacing an average ton of garbage with new products made from virgin materials.

Aluminum smelting also produces sulfur oxide and氮氧化物，两种有毒气体是关键元素烟雾和酸雨。

此外，必须生产的每吨新的铝罐才能更换未回收的罐子，需要五吨铝土矿矿石，这些矿石必须经过磨损，粉碎，洗涤，洗涤并精制成氧化铝，然后才能冶炼。该过程产生了约五吨苛性泥浆，可污染地表水和地下水，进而破坏人和动物的健康。

How Many Times the Same Piece of Aluminum Can Be Recycled

There is no limit to how many times aluminum can be recycled. That's why recycling aluminum is such a boon for the beplay体育官网电脑environment. Aluminum is considered a sustainable metal, which means it can be recycled again and again with no loss of material.

回收铝的速度从未比今天更便宜，更快或更节能。铝罐是100％可回收的，使其成为所有材料中最可回收（且有价值的）。铝制可以在短短60天内将铝扔进回收垃圾箱中，并在短短60天内返回商店架子。

The Energy People Save by Recycling Aluminum

Recycling aluminum saves 90% to 95% of the energy needed to make aluminum from bauxite ore. It doesn't matter if you're making aluminum cans, roof gutters or cookware, it is simply much more energy-efficient to recycle existing aluminum to create the aluminum needed for new products than it is to make aluminum from virgin natural resources.

So how much energy are we talking about here? Recycling one pound of aluminum (33 cans) saves about 7 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity. With the energy it takes to make just one new aluminum can from bauxite ore, you can make 20 recycled aluminum cans.

Putting the energy question into even more down-to-earth terms, the energy saved by recycling one aluminum can is enough to power a television set for three hours.

当铝发送到垃圾填埋场时，能量就会浪费

The opposite of saving energy is wasting it. Toss an aluminum can into the trash instead of recycling it, and the energy required to replace that discarded resource with new aluminum from bauxite ore is enough to keep a 100-watt incandescent light bulb burning for five hours or to power the average laptop computer for 11 hours, according to the Container Recycling Institute.

如果您考虑在为紧凑型荧光（CFL）或发光二极管（LED）灯泡或新的节能笔记本电脑供电的能量方面发挥多远，那么成本确实开始增加。

总而言之，仅在美国，每年浪费的所有铝罐所需的能量相当于1600万桶石油，足以将一百万辆汽车在道路上保存一年。如果所有这些丢弃的罐子每年都被回收，那么节省的电力可能会为130万辆美国的房屋供电。

在全球范围内，每年大约有230亿千瓦时浪费，这是由于垃圾或焚化铝罐的结果。铝制行业每年使用近3000亿千瓦时的电力，约占世界总消耗的3％。

Aluminum Recycled Every Year

每年出售的所有铝制罐中的一半（在美国和全球）被回收，并变成新的铝制罐和其他产品。一些国家的表现非常出色：瑞士，挪威，芬兰和德国都回收了所有铝制饮料容器的90％以上。

铝扔掉，永不回收

We may be recycling more aluminum every year, but things could still be a lot better. According to the beplay体育官网电脑Environmental Defense Fund, Americans throw away so much aluminum that every three months we could collect enough scrap to rebuild the entire U.S. commercial airplane fleet from the ground up. That's a lot of wasted aluminum.

Globally, more than half of all the aluminum cans produced and sold every year are thrown away and never recycled, which means they have to be replaced by new cans made from virgin materials.

铝回收帮助当地社区

每年，铝业行业都要为可回收的铝罐支付近十亿美元的费用 - 这笔钱可以用于支持人居中的人居署和美国男孩女孩俱乐部，以及赞助商可以开车的当地学校和教堂或正在进行的铝回收计划。

How to Increase Aluminum Recycling

增加铝回收利用的一种简单有效的方法是，政府要求消费者对在其司法管辖区出售的所有饮料容器支付可退还的押金。具有集装箱存款法（或“瓶帐单”）的美国各州回收了所有铝罐的75％至95％。没有存款法律的州仅回收约35％的铝罐。