4 Everyday Items That Are Made From Recycled Metals
Metals that end up in a scrap yard to be recycled are melted down and formed into new items that you use every day. Some metals are recycled into obvious items such as aluminum soda cans and new frames for vehicles, but metals are also recycled and used in more not-so-obvious ways. Here are four items that are made thanks to scrap metal recycling:
Vehicle Battery
The battery in your vehicle contains lead in its electrode plates which help conduct the electricity inside your battery, enabling it to power your vehicle. If the plates become corroded, they can break causing your battery to stop working.
Lead electrode plates in your vehicle's battery provide power to your starter and ignition system, and the vehicle's lights. They power your vehicle's interior lights before your car is started. They also give your vehicle the power to turn over the motor in the engine to get your vehicle running.
Home Water Heater
Inside your water heater is an anode to prevent the inside of your metal water heater from rusting. The anode is a thin steel wire covered in a thick layer of zinc that reacts in the water, keeping the water heater's interior rust-free. The zinc in this type of sacrificial anode is slowly used up over the life of the anode.
Without recycled zinc to create the anode for your water heater, your water heater will rust out and leak water all over your home.
Canned Food
Any time you open a can of food from the store, you are benefiting from the rust-resistant properties of recycled tin.
A steel can of food is covered in a thin layer of recycled tin. The layer of tin keeps the food from turning the interior of the can rusty. Tin is used in a thin layer because it is an expensive non-corrosive metal. If tin were used to make an entire can for your canned food, the cost of the tin would make the canned food not affordable.
Home Windows
A low-emissivity coating of tin oxide over the glass on your windows makes the glass more energy efficient. The tin oxide lowers the heat transfer through your windows by limiting the amount of heat energy the glass reflects and conducts.
With a coating of recycled tin added to your window glass, your windows absorb heat to reflect the heat to the outdoors when it is hot out. When it is cold outside, the reverse happens and absorbed heat is conducted and kept inside your home.
Without these four common uses for recycled metals our lives would be much different and less comfortable.