10 01, 2019

Environmental Advantages of Aluminum Extrusions

2019-01-10T19:19:41+00:00January 10th, 2019|

Beautiful country side with grassy mountain vistas and artistically-styled green cityscape & airplane

Aluminum. It’s light. It’s strong. It’s highly recyclable. And it’s leading the charge in our planet-wide quest for a more renewable, sustainable future… and aluminum extrusions are definetly part of the conservation puzzle..

Strides in aluminum alloy technology have allowed aluminum products to lower energy and carbon emissions in countless applications. From the automotive and aerospace industry, to construction and marine, consumer products, and beyond, aluminum is no doubt the sustainable solution for the modern world.

The facts don’t lie. The energy required to create new aluminum has decreased by 26% in the last two and a half decades, and the entire industry’s global warming potential has decreased by 37% (source: aluminum.org). This is due in large part to robust aluminum recycling programs that manufacturers have adopted.

Let’s dig deeper into the different facets of aluminum that is making it the material of the future.

LIGHTWEIGHT DESIGN

Implementing lightweight aluminum into manufacturing designs presents a great opportunity to increase the sustainable use of energy. Aluminum’s light weight contributes to increased fuel efficiency in transport vehicles, from consumer automobiles to military vehicles and airplanes. Aluminum’s 95% reflectivity property can be used in building materials to reduce heating costs within green buildings, and improves the efficiency of solar panels and solar cells.

We will go over the sustainability aluminum provides due to recycling further below, but it is important to note that the greatest environmental benefit comes from the day to day use of vehicles and buildings that are built with aluminum.

For buildings, the use of aluminum in extrusion-based building components (such as windows, sunshades, facades, etc.) can massively decrease the operating costs and energy usage over the lifetime of a building.

Aluminum extrusions’ combination of low weight and high strength provides immense benefits to pretty much anything with a motor and wheels. In using this material, you are reducing the mass that must be moved by the transportation system. Mass reductions in this way can lead to further downsizing elsewhere in the design, which results in reduced carbon emissions and energy consumption.

Each pound of aluminum used in place of high-strength steel provides the following benefits:

  • saves the equivalent of 3.1 gallons of crude oil over the life of the vehicle (source: org)
  • saves CO2 from day one, using recycled aluminum (source: org)

RECYCLING

The sustainability benefits that come from recycling aluminum are unmatched. As with any recyclable material, recycling aluminum conserves energy and our natural resources, as well as reduces water and air pollution.

Aluminum is INFINITELY recyclable. That means that it can be recycled over and over with virtually no limit.

Since 1884, billions of metric tons of aluminum have been produced, and today, roughly 74% of that amount is still in use today.

Yes, aluminum is truly unparalleled when it comes to recycling.. In fact, all aspects of products made from aluminum can be reused. That means that a simple act like tossing your aluminum cans into the recycling bin, instead of the general trash, can conserve 95% of the energy that it takes to create a new aluminum can.

For every 1 ton of aluminum recycled, the planet is spared 9 tons of CO2 emissions.

Members of the Aluminum Extrusion Council are deeply involved in scrap collection and secondary smelting programs. (source: AEC.org).

CONCLUSION

Although modern technology is making the world much smaller, it’s also introducing a lot of design challenges as we work towards creating a better, more sustainable future. Taber Extrusions is proud to be a prominent member of the aluminum extrusion industry, as it gives us the opportunity to assist manufacturers in reducing their carbon footprint in their designs, and work towards a better tomorrow.

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17 07, 2017

Why You Should Be Recycling Aluminum

2017-07-26T17:45:01+00:00July 17th, 2017|

recycling aluminum banner

Recycling aluminum. What’s the big deal? Although new people are opting to recycle their aluminum products every day, still more choose to simply throw these products in with the rest of their trash. Doing this a great disservice to yourself and the environment; not only do many states in the U.S pay you a return for recycling your aluminum cans, but the simple act of recycling aluminum products reduces your consumption footprint by over 95%  – in other words, the energy it takes to reuse an aluminum can is 5% that of smelting and producing a new one. More on that later- first, let’s discuss what effects the impact of NOT recycling aluminum can have on the environment, and the economy.

ENVIRONMENTAL DETRIMENTS of not recycling aluminum

Every year in the United States, around 100 billion aluminum cans are manufactured and sold, but less than half of those cans make it to the recycling bin. This number is consistent among developed countries (with few exceptions; Brazil for example recycles around 98% of its aluminum cans.) Cans that are not recycled are either incinerated, which creates harmful emissions, or find themselves in landfills, where it will take them 200-500 years to decompose. This is no small amount of aluminum- even conservative estimates dictate that we waste 1.5 million tons of aluminum every year. That’s 1.5 million tons of aluminum cans that must be made anew from virgin materials, rather than from recycled aluminum materials.

And what does creating new aluminum entail? According to the Container Recycling Institute, while aluminum cans only make up 1.4 percent of any given ton of garbage, they account for 14 percent of the harmful emissions when it comes to replacing these wasted materials with new ones.

That includes all of the other aspects of creating aluminum, including strip mining for bauxite ore and smelting it down into a usable form.

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS of recycling aluminum

Simply put, the benefits of recycling aluminum (and any recyclable material) are that it greatly conserves energy, conserves our natural resources and puts them back to use, and reduces water and air pollution. Aluminum is infinitely recyclable, meaning it can be recycled over and over with no limit. Since 1884, billons of metric tons of aluminum have been produced, and roughly 74% of that is still in use due to its recyclability.

Aluminum is unparalleled when it comes to retrieving usable material and creating new products from it. In fact, all aspects of an aluminum made product can be reused; and the simple act of tossing your aluminum can in the recycling bin conserves 95% of the energy it takes to create a new one. Aluminum is the most used material in creation of new products, so even a small percentage increase of people recycling will pay off in dividends when it comes to our future. For every 1-ton of aluminum recycled, the planet is spared 9 tons of CO2 emissions.

A little truly goes a long way, and the energy saved from this recycled material can be better used to power our lives in an efficient way.

 

NOT JUST CANS: WHAT ELSE YOU CAN RECYCLE

 

Happy recycling!

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