NOTE on RECYCLING Aluminium

NOTE on RECYCLING Aluminium
About 39% of the aluminium in foil, car components etc. is recycled aluminium.
This makes good economics because recycling saves on costs AND allows a mineral resource like aluminium's bauxite ore to last a lot longer – slower depletion of the Earth's mineral ore resources will make it last longer.
Transport costs may be less (ie within UK now), but much more importantly
mining costs are omitted – energy/machinery involved in digging out the ore, crushing it, transporting the ore,
and the cost of actually extracting the metal from its finite ore resource – electrolysis plant, expensive electrical energy used
So, scrap metal merchants are doing a roaring trade at the moment.
The savings are partly reduced by the cost off collecting waste/scrap metal and purifying for further use.
It is estimated that recycling aluminium only uses 5% of the energy required to extracted the same mass of aluminium from its ore – the original aluminium extraction uses very expensive electrical energy for the electrolysis.