How Scrap Metal from Machine Shops gets Recycled

Scrap. Just the word brings to mind wasted time, energy, and most of all money. Modern machining methods have become increasingly efficient and processes like the deep drawn metal process focus on reducing or eliminating scrap to the highest degree possible from the design stage forward. But the fact is some scrap is inevitable. Every customer wants to be sure that they are paying the best price for the finished product, not the shavings that end up on the floor. So what happens to all that scrap?

Fact is that in the ever evolving, ever improving world of machining and manufacturing, scrap is no longer the waste product that it once was. High tech smelting firms and recycling plants now form partnerships with machine shops and industries, collecting the scrap generated and processing the materials back into useable stock. The modernized, efficient recycling centers of today have changed the meaning of scrap at every level of the process.

For the deep drawn metal process, the returned cost of materials from the recycler means the price more closely reflects only the material used in the final part. For the recycler, collecting waste materials from manufacturing centers allows them to create new raw materials for other suppliers to purchase. For the rest of the world, it means less rusting metal wastes in our landfills.

Modern recycling firms are capable of processing virtually all types of metals and alloys. Sophisticated smelting systems melt and separate the metals back into individual components then re-forge the material into ingots, bars, and other forms that are readily useable by industry. The act of drossing removes impurities from the metals and ensures that the recycled material meets all of the same specifications of the original. At the same time, elements can be combined to form alloys for use in various manufacturing processes.

The deep drawn metal process has always been engineered and operated with scrap reduction in mind. That is a fact that will never change. The difference in the industries of today compared to those fifty years ago is how the inevitable resulting scrap is handled. Trucks no longer cart wasted rusty metal off to the landfill to sit and leach contaminants into the soil. Today those same trucks head to recycling centers, where the cycle of usefulness continues.

And that means good business for everyone.

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