Recycling Information For Galvanized Steel Tubing

Choose Steel – It’s the world’s most recycled, and recyclable material. Thinking recycled material for your next job? How about our galvanized steel tubing? Our products themselves are recyclable. Our tubular products (by weight) are 95-98% steel, and are therefore at least 95-98% recyclable.

You may not know it, but steel is the world’s most recycled material. Each year more than 60 million tons of steel is recycled, more than double the amount of all other materials combined, including paper, glass, plastic, aluminum, and other metals.

From old cars to old appliances, steel is recycled and re-created into new products for new uses. That’s how the steel from an old car can become the steel used in new playground equipment, greenhouses, awnings, or fitness equipment. It’s also the most recyclable material, so someday, the steel in your playground equipment may become the steel used in your new car! If your specs or bid requirements call for using recycled materials for equipment, ask for steel. Steel has been recycled even before recycling was popular. For over 150 years, steel scrap has been recycled and turned into new steel products.

And when those products become old or obsolete, many are recycled and re-created into even newer products. When you use steel, you’re helping to close the recycling circle. When the specs call for recycled, ask for steel!

Most of the steel recycled today comes from old automobiles. The typical passenger car consists of about 70 percent steel and iron by weight, and much of that can be recycled. Recycling automobiles is good for the environment. Last year, more than 12 million tons of steel were recovered from recycled cars and diverted from local landfills.

Here’s How the Process Works:

• Old cars are hauled to an automobile dismantler. The reusable parts are removed and resold to auto repair garages, body shops or to the public.
• Reusable components and other items like tires, batteries and fluids are removed. Then, the hulks are usually flattened and shipped by truck to ferrous scrap processors.
• At the scrap yard, the crushed automobiles are loaded by crane into the automobile shredder. The shredder demolishes one car every 45 seconds! This process yields three streams: iron and steel, nonferrous metal and fluff (rubber, glass, fabric, etc.). The iron and steel are magnetically separated from the other materials.
• The steel shred is magnetically loaded into a railcar or truck. Or, it may be stockpiled for future shipment to end markets, or to steel mills, where it is recycled to produce new steel. The recycling process is complete!

All that recycled steel saves landfill space and energy, too! The steel industry annually saves enough energy to power 18 million households for a year.