Recycling Aluminum Cans

Aluminum is one of the few materials that can be recycled forever without losing quality. The technology used to sort it from other waste is what makes large-scale recycling possible. Aluminum is not magnetic, so a standard magnet used to pull steel cans from a recycling stream simply passes over it. Instead, facilities use a device called an eddy current separator. As mixed waste passes over a spinning magnetic rotor, the changing magnetic field creates small electrical currents inside each aluminum can. These currents create their own magnetic field, which pushes the can away and launches it into a separate bin. Once sorted, the cans are shredded and cleaned of any coatings or contaminants. Then they are melted in furnaces heated to about 750 degrees Celsius. Any remaining impurities rise to the surface as a layer that can be skimmed off. The purified aluminum is then cast into new sheets. The entire process, from a can dropped into a recycling bin to a new can on a store shelf, can take as little as sixty days. Melting recycled aluminum uses up to ninety-five percent less energy than refining new aluminum from raw ore. Because of this, recycling a single can saves enough electricity to power a television for about two hours.