Steel Yourself for Some Good Recycling News

On the matter of how much progress we are making to reduce waste and maximize reuse, we've got the pedal to the metal when it comes to steel.

According to a recent press release (PDF) issued by the Steel Recycling Institute (SRI), our rate of steel reuse has hit an all-time high of just over 83 percent last year. According to the SRI, 2008 witnessed some 82 million tons of scrap steel being reintroduced into the manufacturing process from the nation's scrap piles, rendering steel by far the most recycled material, surpassing other metals as well as paper, plastic and glass.

The SRI reminds us that the reuse of steel brings the side benefits of raw material and fuel use reduction as well. For each ton of steel that we recycle, we get to hold off on chewing through 2.5 tons of iron ore and 1.4 tons of coal. Stepping up the recycling rate has allowed improvement in both energy usage and greenhouse gas emission rates as well.

We still have our work cut out for us when it comes to plastics. We use astonishing amounts of the stuff, much of it fleetingly. It hangs around in the environment for a very long time, and we are learning more about just how long it will stay around, and just how far it will wander.

Disposable plastic shopping bags are particularly pernicious, and several cities have enacted curbs on their use. While more can be done, New Scientist tells us of one scientist who's got some clever tricks in his bag: working at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, Vilas Ganpat Pol has developed a procedure that converts plastic shopping bags into carbon nanotubes useful for inclusion in lithium ion batteries.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. Rejoice! We're getting smarter, more insightful, and just plain better at finding ways to capture and repurpose our various waste streams.

Photo courtesy of blahedo, via Wikimedia Commons