Each and every year thousands of tons of trash is thrown into landfills. While we are in no danger of running short on landfill space, this is expensive in terms of time, space, and energy invested, as well as the sheer waste of materials that will not be used again. With that in mind, consider the reasons below for keeping your steel and aluminum cans out of the landfill by recycling them instead.

- Aluminum which has been recycled is back in use again within a couple of months. In contrast, it would take 200-500 years for that metal to break down naturally if were just thrown away.

- Recycling is about more than just material savings, it is also about energy consciousness. Every aluminum can which is recycled saves enough energy to run a television for 3 hours.

- Metal cans can be exchanged for cash at lots of places. Various states offer five cents per can recycled, and some recycling centers pay anywhere between fifty cents and two dollars per pound of cans recycled.

- Recycled steel and aluminum are have exactly the same composition as ‘new’ aluminum and steel. Recycled metals are simply melted down and mixed into lots to make new products.

- On average, Americans recycle around 100,000 aluminum cans per minute. The majority of that figure is a result of certain communities working hard on special projects, and that is something that you should encourage those in your neighborhood to take up, as recycling can really help with bringing a community together.

- The 100,000,000 ‘new’ steel cans produced on a daily basis contain 25% recycled materials. That equates to 25 million reclaimed cans versus 75 million completely new cans. If people recycled more frequently, that number would soon become 50-50 and a huge amount of resources and energy would be saved.

- The United States presently uses steel which is more than 65 percent recycled. That is not too bad, but there is definitely room for improvement. This proportion would go up significantly if more people were aware that they could recycle their steel cans.

- There are multiple can-crushing machines available, and you can even make a home-made one for free. Therefore, it is no excuse to say that recycling cans takes up too much space within your home.
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http://www.cancrusher.org.uk is a site offering information about recycling aluminum and steel cans.