WE RECYCLE:

• all aluminum beverage cans
• all steel or bimetal beverage or food cans

WE DO NOT RECYCLE:

• aerosol cans
• paint cans
• propane tanks

These items may be considered hazardous waste and should be disposed of properly. Questions of how and where to dispose of hazardous materials at UST should be directed to Bob Jacobs, Director of Environmental Health and Safety at (96)2-6533.

HOW & WHERE TO RECYCLE:

• all liquid should be drained and food residue removed from cans before recycling.
• labels do not have to be removed from food cans
• aluminum & metal cans should be put in campus recycling containers marked "cans" or brought to the Recycling Center at the Physical Plant.

WE RECYCLE SEPARATELY:

• clean aluminum foil, aluminum pie plates/food trays, pots & pans, lawn furniture, window & door frames, & other clean aluminum products
• copper
• brass
• silver
• sheet iron
• steel
• other metals

These alloys are different than the alloy used in "tin" cans, but they are recyclable! If you need to schedule a pick up of such items, please call Bob Douglas, the Recycling Coordinator at 962-6388.

FACTS ABOUT CANS, aluminum & other metal recycling:

• According to the EPA, recycling just 1 ton of aluminum cans rather than throwing them away conserves more than 207 million BTUs, the equivalent of 36 barrels of oil or 1,655 gallons of gasoline.
• Recycling steel and tin cans saves between 60 and 74 percent of the energy used to produce them from raw materials. Recycling one aluminum beverage can saves enough energy to run a 100 watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours. from EPA WasteWise
• To produce a ton of aluminum from scratch requires five tons of bauxite and 16,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity.   With recycling, you need a ton of old cans and just 750 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
• In 1974, 22.7 cans equaled a pound of aluminum. By 1995, it increased to 32 cans per pound. In 1997, according to figures released by the Aluminum Association, the Can Manufacturers Institute, and the Institute of Scrap
  Recycling Industries, 32.57 cans are now made from one pound of aluminum. Lighter cans!
• Americans trash about half of the over 100 billion container cans they purchase each year.  In 2002, 51.6 billion used aluminum beverage cans (UBCs) were landfilled or littered (140 million every day), and the recycling rate for cans sunk to its lowest point since 1980. In April, the Aluminum Association, a Washington-based industry trade group, announced that the year 2002 UBC recycling rate was 53.4%. However, when the data are adjusted for the 5.3 billion imported scrap cans that were not originally sold in the United States, the actual domestic UBC recycling rate was 48.4%--lower than the 2001 rate of 49.2%. -from reports published by the Container Recycling Institute
• The Aluminum Association, the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has released statistics indicating that Americans and can recycling industries recycled 51.5 billion aluminum cans in 2004, for a beverage can recycling rate of 51.2 percent. This reflects a 1.2 percent increase from the 2003 rate and the first increase since 1997
• Brazil recycled 89 percent of all aluminum cans sold in the country in 2003, maintaining the world record in aluminum can recycling for the third consecutive year among those countries where can recycling is voluntary. The 89-percent recycling rate corresponds to a volume of 112,000 metric tons of aluminum, or 8.2 billion cans, according to data compiled by Brazilian aluminum association Associação Brasiliera do Alumínio (Abal) and Brazilian canmakers' association Associação Brasileira dos Fabricantes de Latas de Alta Reciclabilidade.  -from the Aluminum Association May '05
• Aluminum cans are relatively new to Brazil. They were introduced only in 1990, when the Skol brewery began using them to provide a smaller, more convenient alternative to the traditional 600-milliliters (22-ounce), glass bottles. Since then, the market for aluminum cans has grown more than 3,000 percent, and recycling them has become a $110 million a year industry that employs an estimated 150,000 people, the aluminum association says. –from "Brazil poised to join top ranks of can recyclers, CNN.com, 3 Jan 2001
• The U.S. is going from a world leader in used beverage can (UBC) recycling to an also-ran. The U.S. 2001 55.4 percent UBC recycling rate places it well behind neighboring Canada (70 percent) and distantly trailing Brazil with its 85 percent rate. Report from Recycling Today, 25 Sep 02
• The recycling of aluminum beverage containers declined in 2001 with a recycling rate of 55.4 percent.  According to the Aluminum Association about 55.6 billion used beverage containers (UBCs) were recycled in the U.S. last year, a decline of more than 11 per cent from the recycling level in 2000.  It was the first time in a decade that the rate has dipped below 60%.
• According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 1999, 3.1 million tons of aluminum (all types) was generated in the United States.  In the same year, 0.9 million tons of aluminum was recovered through recycling giving a recovery rate of 27.8%
• The average aluminum can contains more than 50 percent post-consumer recycled content.
• The aluminum beverage can returns to the grocer's shelf as a new, filled can in as little as 90 days after collection, remelting, rolling, manufacturing, and distributing. A consumer could purchase the same basic recycled can every 13 weeks or 4 times a year.
• Tin cans are actually 99% steel with a thin layer of tin added to prevent rusting.
• Every day Americans use enough steel and tin cans to make a steel pipe running from Los Angeles to New York... and back!
• Steel cans package 97% of canned food on the market.
• There are more than 70 end markets for steel cans, recycling more than 104 pounds of steel cans per second according to the Steel Recycling Institute's 1997 figures.
• According to the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, 43% of the copper, 32% of the aluminum, 55% of the lead, and 19% of the zinc needed as raw materials in the U.S. are supplied by "scrap" recycling.
• The U.S. is the world's largest exporter of scrap metal. There are about 12,000 auto dismantlers and 250 shredders in the country. Virtually every automobile and three of four appliances are recycled. Much of our steel scrap has been shipped overseas for steel smelters in countries such as Japan and Turkey. According to Recycling Today, the trend is changing. The dearth of gondola rail cars has made off shore scrap shipping more economically attractive, but the railroads understand their loss of business and are moving to remedy the situation. There is also increasing demand from scrap processors in the Midwest/Great Lakes and Northeast regions to high tonnage mini-mills in the south.
• The St. Thomas Recycling Center uses a magnetic conveyer belt to separate aluminum cans from steel ones. The aluminum cans are crushed in a crusher so more cans can be stored between deliveries to the processor.

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