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Recycled Materials Info

Alpine SnowGuards & Recycled Materials

The stainless steel and aluminum that we use in production of our snow guards contains 50% recycled (post-consumer) metal.

Our brass snow guards are made from 70% recycled material.

For more information on recycling steel visit The Steel Recycling Institute.

Metal Recycling According to Wikipedia...

Ferrous metals

Iron and steel are the world's most recycled materials, and among the easiest materials to recycle, as they can be separated magnetically from the waste stream. Recycling is via a steelworks: scrap is either remelted in an Electric Arc Furnace (90-100% scrap), or used as part of the charge in a Basic Oxygen Furnace (around 25% scrap).[7] Any grade of steel can be recycled to top quality new metal, with no 'downgrading' from prime to lower quality materials as steel is recycled repeatedly. 42% of crude steel produced is recycled material.[8]

Non-ferrous metals

Aluminium is shredded and ground into small pieces or crushed into bales. These pieces or bales are melted in an aluminium smelter to produce molten aluminium. By this stage the recycled aluminium is indistinguishable from virgin aluminium and further processing is identical for both. Due to the high melting point of aluminum ore, large amounts of energy are required to extract aluminum from ore, making the environmental benefits of recycling aluminium enormous. Approximately 5% of the CO2 is produced during the recycling process compared to producing raw aluminium (and an even smaller percentage when considering the complete cycle of mining and transporting the aluminium). Also, as open-cut mining most often used for obtaining aluminium ore, mining destroys large sections of natural land. An aluminium can is 100% recyclable every time it is recycled, it saves enough energy to watch television for about three hours (compared to mining and producing a new can).

Visit Wikipedia's Recycling Page.