Aluminum Can Recycling Process Much like glass recycling, aluminium can recycling is a cyclical process that begins

once consumers toss aluminium cans into their curbside recycling bins, where it is picked up and shipped off to the recycling plant. Upon collection at regional scrap processing plants, the cans are compacted into dense briquettes or bales. These masses can range anywhere from thirty to twelve hundred pounds (13.6 to 544 kilograms), and are shipped off to aluminum companies for melting into new cans. In the next step of the aluminum can recycling process, the compacted masses of cans are first stripped of any superfluous layers on the inside or outside of the product container through a burning process. Then they are shredded and crushed into wood chip-sized pieces of aluminum. The pieces are piled into a melting furnace, which combines the recycled metal with new, pure pieces of aluminum. Once in a molten state, the aluminum is poured into enormously heavy ingots, where the metal is rolled into sheets that are one-hundredth of an inch (.254 millimeters) thick, via the rolling mill. The sheets are then removed, coiled, and shipped to can makers. At this point, the aluminum can recycling process is complete. The can makers produce the can bodies and lids that are passed on to beverage companies that fill the cans with their product. The finished products ultimately end up in grocery store shelves. Aluminum can recycling is a process with a time span that lasts as little as sixty days from start to finish.

PAPER Recycling Process

Paper is one of the easiest materials to recycle. Paper is collected from our kerbside or recycling banks by local authorities and waste management companies. Once the paper is collected it is then:

Sorted, graded and delivered to a paper mill. Once at the paper mill it is added to water and then turned into pulp. The paper is then screened, cleaned and de-inked through a number of processes until it is suitable for papermaking. It is then ready to be made into new paper products such as newsprint, cardboard, packaging, tissue and office items. It can take just seven days for a newspaper to go through the recycling process and be transformed into recycled newsprint which is used to make the majority of daily newspapers.