Instead of burning and crushing the materials in metal scrap and old electronics, a better, more environmentally friendly method for your company is recycling. The production of recycled aluminum is 92% more energy-efficient than making new aluminum! For copper, this can be 90% more efficient, while for steel it is still 56% more efficient. Metal is almost infinitely recyclable.
Who We Are
Kelowna Recycling is a full-service recycling centre accepting free drop-offs of metal and electronics. As the recycling leader for southern BC, we are also pleased to offer free scrap metal pick-ups for the Thompson-Okanagan, Shuswap, Cariboo and Kootenay regions (minimum volumes apply). We arrange for bin drop-offs and pickups for commercial enterprises and construction sites.
The Benefits of Recycling Metal
We all are more familiar with paper recycling. Studies show suggests that a ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees and, in turn, saves 7,000 gallons of water. If recycling paper can save this much energy, what about metals in electronics? These electronics are built with silver, copper, gold, palladium, and aluminum. We shouldn’t throw away our cell phones, printers, and computers – it’s super easy to drop them off at Kelowna Recycling.
Want to kick-off your company’s zero-landfill initiative? Metal and electronic recycling pickups is one way to achieve this. Recycled materials are richer than the virgin material extracted from ore – because recycled materials have already been purified. According to Electronic Recyclers International (ERI), 40 to 800 times the amount of gold and 30 to 40 times the amount of copper used to produce one metric ton of circuit boards come out of just one metric ton of ore.
Worldwide, the annual manufacture of high-tech products (PCs, cell phones, tablet computers and other electronic and electrical devices) uses some $21 billion worth of gold and silver (320 tons and 7,500 tons, respectively). But when these products reach the end of their usable life and become electronic waste (e-waste), less than 15% of these precious metal “deposits” are recovered for reuse. The rest is discarded, creating potential health and environmental hazards.
Governments and municipalities have now introduced policies to increase the e-scrap recycling rate and actively encourage commercial companies and the public to do so. If electronic waste contains 40 to 50 times more metal than naturally occurring ore deposits, we should be using more of it to produce new electronics. Do you know how much energy, resources, money, and time will be saved?
Call Us for a Pickup
Give the folks at Kelowna Recycling a call to discuss what you have to recycle. We can provide bins and schedule a pickup right from your site.