Aluminum cans are one of the best materials to recycle for many different reasons. The recycling process for cans is called closed-loop because old cans become part of new ones over and over in as few as 60 days! Here's how the process works:
1. First, aluminum cans are collected and sent to a recycling center.
2. At the recycling center, the cans are cleaned, crushed and bailed.
3. Next, the used cans go to the aluminum manufacturing plant. The cans are shredded at the plant, re-melted with virgin aluminum and cast into new ingots. By adding recycled aluminum scrap to the virgin mixture, less raw material is mined from the earth, less time and fuel are used in shipping the material, and less energy is used in processing.
4. The ingots are rolled into long, thin sheets that are then coiled and sent to the can manufacturing plant.
5. The cans are made at the manufacturing plant from the recycled aluminum sheet. They are then sent to the soft drink companies for filling and sealing.
6. Once filled, the canned soft drinks are sold to consumers who drink the beverage and recycle their cans. This starts the whole process over again.
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