When it comes to pulling your weight to benefit the environment, many families already separate their paper and plastic recyclables from the rest of their household trash. However, if you’re not also recycling your metal, you could be harming the planet. Here are just a few ways taking your scrap metal to a recycling facility can help the environment.

3 Environmental Advantages of Scrap Metal Recycling

1. Limiting New Manufacturing

When you recycle your old or unwanted metal pieces, that material can be melted down and used to make new products, from patio furniture to airplanes. New metal won’t have to be mined from the earth for use in a factory or production plant. This is important, as the equipment used to mine natural resources and turn them into products runs on fossil fuels, which releases greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Therefore, you can minimize the environmental consequences of mining and manufacturing by turning in your scrap metal.

2. Cutting Down on Landfill Waste

When you throw out your old electronics and metal construction materials, they will end up in landfills, many of which are already overflowing. By recycling scrap metal, the material will be turned into new metal products, slowing down the rate at which landfills reach capacity. Smaller landfills require fewer resources to manage, so your simple effort will have an eco-friendly domino effect.

3. Slowing Down the Consumption of Natural Resources

While it might not seem like it, metal is just as natural in its origins as wood. It has to be aggressively extracted from the earth, and it doesn’t replenish itself over time. In other words, ore is a finite resource. That’s another way in which metal recycling benefits the environment—by reusing metal, we can dig up less of it.

If you’re interested in recycling your scrap metal and helping the planet, stop by one of Metalico Rochester’s three convenient locations in Rochester or Bergen, NY. They accept everything from doors to vehicles, and they’ll even remove junk metal from your property. They also sell car parts and offer real-time text updates on metal market trends. To learn more about this publicly traded company, visit the website, or call (585) 436-0713 to speak to a team member.