Stainless steel is fast-emerging as one of the most popular recyclable materials in the UK. Normally, consumers purchase stainless steel products as they are designed for the long term and built to last. However, there comes a time that even stainless steel reaches the end of its useful life.
At Hawkeswood Metal Recycling, stainless steel is one of our most popular scrap metals. We always endeavour to give our customers the best possible scrap metal prices on the day as values can fluctuate literally by the hour!
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RECYCLING STAINLESS STEEL
In theory, stainless steel is 100 per cent recyclable. The primary alloying elements of stainless steel – chromium, nickel and molybdenum – are all extremely valuable and can be recovered easily and retrieved from the other materials.
There are many reasons why you might want to recycle a stainless steel product. It might even be in reasonable condition but is fast moving out of fashion; but in many cases it’s because technology has developed over time, replacing it with a more efficient model.
Stainless Steel
According to the British Stainless Steel Association, any stainless steel object has an approximate recycled content of 60 per cent. Back in 2007, around 27 million tonnes of steel were produced, with approximately 16 million tonnes of recycled stainless steel and other materials used to generate this amount.
The amount of recycled stainless steel in any new stainless steel object is only going to increase in future years as the steel produced today won’t need to be recycled for another two to three decades, potentially.
Stainless steel offers many environmental and social benefits. It enables people to lead a healthier life and is cleaner for the wider environment too.
DID YOU KNOW?
The production of new stainless steel is made up of 25 per cent old scrap – from end-of-life products – 35 per cent new scrap – from material returned from production and manufacturing – and 40 per cent raw materials – such as ferro-chromium and ferro-nickel.
The long-term average growth rate of stainless steel is approximately five per cent every year. In fact, even if all of the stainless steel produced was returned, the available material would only account for around 35 per cent of today’s stainless steel production and 20 per cent of today’s production if the average useful life was 20 years and 30 years respectively.
Subsequently, stainless steel remains part of a closed-loop system that’s sustainable and great for the wider environment as it can be re-used without any degradation.