Scrap

The industry includes both formal organizations and a wide range of informal roles such as waste pickers who help sorting through scrap.

Typically a "scrapper" will advertise their services to conveniently remove scrap metal for people who don't need it.

A wrecking yard, depending on its location, may allow customers to browse their lot and purchase items before they are sent to the smelters, although many scrap yards that deal in large quantities of scrap usually do not, often selling entire units such as engines or machinery by weight with no regard to their functional status.

A scrap metal shredder is often used to recycle items containing a variety of other materials in combination with steel.

Non-US domiciled publications, such as The Steel Index, also report on the US scrap price, which has become increasingly important to global export markets.

For example, large amounts of metal are buried underground as part of the provision of basic services including telecoms.

[8] Figures for this are issued by SGU, a Swedish government body responsible for geological survey of bedrock, soil and groundwater.

[12][13] Ferrous metals contain an appreciable percentage of iron and the addition of carbon and other substances creates steel.

[17] The steel industry has been actively recycling for more than 150 years, in large part because it is economically advantageous to do so.

Steel does not lose any of its inherent physical properties during the recycling process, and has drastically reduced energy and material requirements compared with refinement from iron ore.

[18] According to the International Resource Panel's Metal Stocks in Society report, the per capita stock of steel in use in Australia, Canada, the European Union EU15, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, and the US combined is 7,085 kilograms (15,620 lb) (about 860 million people in 2005).

BOS steel usually contains lower concentrations of residual elements such as copper, nickel, and molybdenum, and is, therefore more malleable than electric arc furnace (EAF) steel, and is often used to make automotive fenders, tin cans, industrial drums, or any product with a large degree of cold working.

This steel contains greater concentrations of residual elements that cannot be removed through the application of oxygen and lime.

It is used to make structural beams, plates, reinforcing bar, and other products that require little cold working.

[21] The hulls of ships, with any usable equipment salvaged and removed, can be broken up to provide scrap steel.

For a time countries in south Asia carried out most shipbreaking, often using manual methods that were hazardous to workers and the environment.

International regulations now dictate the treatment of old ships as sources of hazardous waste, so shipbreaking has returned to ports in more developed countries.

Scrap recycling also helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserves energy and natural resources.