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Aluminum and Steel Food Containers
The average household produces 13.72 kilograms of Steel Food and Beverage Cans per year. Steel Food and Beverage Cans consist of 3.80% of the total waste stream and locally 94.61% of all Steel Food and Beverage Cans produced are recovered.
The average household produces 4.72 kilograms of Aluminum Food and Beverage Cans per year. Aluminum Food and Beverage Cans consist of 1.31% of the total waste stream and locally 98.52% of all Aluminum Food and Beverage Cans produced are recovered.
What is Acceptable? All steel and aluminum cans that have been used to hold food or beverages are acceptable for collection in the blue box.
How to Prepare Material: Containers should be rinsed with lids placed inside of cans. Please do not flatten these containers. Place them loose in your blue box for collection.
What Happens after the Material Leaves your Blue Box? Recyclables are separated by the public, then put out for collection. A worker double checks the material at the curbside, then loads the items into the appropriate compartment of the vehicle. The regular recycling truck has four compartments for mixed metals and plastics, clear glass, paper products, and coloured glass.
At the processing plant, the contents of each compartment is off-loaded into a distinct pile. The Association utilizes several technology based pieces of equipment and only four people to sort all the containers collected from 125,000 people. One person will look at the mix to ensure that the mix is prepared for the equipment. This means that plastic bags are opened and removed, large items such as pails and broken blue boxes are removed, as well as any contaminants. Next, the containers are passed under a magnet that separates all steel containers from other containers. The steel containers are sent along a conveyor belt, checked, and densified into briquettes and stored.
The other containers are then subjected to a venturi based air classification system (vacuum) that separates light materials such as aluminum and plastic from heavy materials such as glass. The light materials are mechanically screened to separate large from small, essentially plastic from aluminum. The small fraction, primarily aluminum is passed through an eddy current field which repeals aluminum and sends other small plastics back with the large plastics.
What Happens after the Material Leaves Bluewater? Steel:Scrap steel is first deposited into a furnace for melting. Electric, basic oxygen, open hearth and blast furnaces are all used to liquefy the steel; the type of furnace used depends upon the finished product desired. Scrap placed in an electric or basic oxygen furnace can produce carbon steel. When added to a blast furnace, recycled steel replaces a portion of the iron ore used to make pig iron. Regardless of the type of furnace, after heating, the molten metal is sent for processing. Again, the method and extent of processing is directly related to the end product required. Upon completing the processing stage, the new steel is ready for market. Recycled steel can become anything from raw materials for more steel (pig iron) to ready-to-use articles such as "I" beams, steel sheets, tin cans and automobiles.
Aluminum: After being separated from steel and other metals, aluminum products are shredded, delaquered and melted down. Some facilities take the dross produced in the furnaces and recycle it as well. Removing the aluminum in dross can raise metal recovery from 75% to 96%. Like steel, the final use of the aluminum dictates to what extent it is further processed. It can be sold in liquid form, made into ingots ranging in size from 16 kg to a tonne or poured into molds to make finished products. Engine blocks, valve covers, wheels and beverage containers are made from recycled aluminum.
For more information, click here for another fact sheet on steel, and here for one on aluminum. |
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