Aluminum is the second most
recycled metal available.
There is a huge market
for recyclable aluminum mostly because in its
raw state aluminum oxide requires tremendous
amounts of energy to break its oxygen bonds and
turn it into pure aluminum. On the flipside
aluminum scrap is very easy to remelt and turn
into new products.
Aluminum grades:
Aluminum cans: These are made
from a high purity alloy. Recycling centers are
currently paying as much as $.65 per pound for
aluminum cans. They take these and magneticly
seperate other foreign materials that may be
present and bale them. these bales are then sold
directly to metal commodity brokers.
Industrial scrap: This
includes manufacturing scrap and rejects. This
material is worth the most when it is seperated by
alloy. The most common industrial alloys are 6061,
2024, 5052, 7075. different alloys are worth
different amounts 7075 alloy being the most
valuable from the list above.
Turnings: These are the metal
chips leftover from machining and sawing
operations. Turnings are often worth less money
because the material is usually contaminated with
cutting oils and other foreign
materials.
Post consumer scrap: Most
common sources are aluminum furniture, tree bases,
cooking pots, siding, gutters, window
frames, automobile parts ( transmision
housings, alloy wheels, engine pistons,
intake manifolds, cylinder heads, engine
blocks), and lawn maintenance equipment
parts.
Post consumer scrap
is probably the hardest to recycle but the easiest
to come across. The problem is these materials
are usually contaminated with paint, oil, and
foreign metals. Most large recyclers will accept
post consumer scrap as is but at a reduced rate.
For example I have a truckload of old lawn chairs,
I've ripped the fabric off of them but there is
still steel rivets remaining this material may
only sell for $0.20 per pound verses if I remove
the rivets It may sell for $.45 per pound.
If you want to setup to
process larger amounts of post consumer or
commercial aluminum scrap it pays to invest
into three key pieces of
equipment.
An alloy identifier: This is a
small handheld device that samples the material
and gives you a digital readout of the alloy is
contains. These are fairly expensive but well
worth the investment.
A hammermill: This is just
what it sounds like there are many configurations
of these machines but essentialy it beats the
material into small pieces with mechanical
hammers. This is also an expensive piece but once
you have one in place the man hours it saves is
incredible.
last a magetic seperator: This
is basicly a conveyor belt system with large
magnets under it to pull out any ferrous metals
from the material flow.
If you want even further
seperation an eddy current seperator can be added.
This machine is basicly another conveyor belt with
a drum of alternating polarity magnets spining
under it. What it does is causes non ferrous metal
such as aluminum to literally jump off of the
conveyor belt and out of your material stream.
This works great for seperating aluminum from
plastic.
