Submitted by CronicChaos84 t3_ybs4og in dataisbeautiful
_AlreadyTaken_ t1_itj5j13 wrote
One thing I learned about steel recycling is that copper contamination is a growing problem. It is impossible to completely remove all copper from recycled scrap and everytime more scrap is put into the mix the steel gets more and more contaminated. The end result is steel gets brittle. There is no economically viable way to remove it so the fix is to keep watering it down with virgin iron from ore.
qhartman t1_itjbt9s wrote
This is true of a lot of materials that get recycled by melting. The recycled content nearly always has some amount of impurities that have to be offset by using virgin material, or using it only in an application where the flaws introduced by the contaminants don't really matter. Like those 100% recycled plastic benches you see from time to time. Generally though, it's one of the reasons it's so rare to see a product that has 100% recycled content. Steel, plastics, and glass are all affected by this. Aluminum is a notable exception.
Emergency-Wave-5335 t1_itk8z5c wrote
Pvc contamination is really bad. That's why we make so much new plastic. It's cheaper than dealing with all the pvc contaminated hdpe, pp, etc.
fiendishrabbit t1_itjwenb wrote
That's mostly because iron is really cheap. Copper and Iron have vastly different properties, including melting points and densities, so at a certain price point the problem becomes a non-issue.
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