Metal Recycling Equipment


Metal Recycling equipment is a large part of the process of metal recycling. Equipment is needed and used anytime a large job is done and the recycling of metal is definitely no exception. When we bring in our old garbage and recyclables we probably don't take the time to consider all they're going to go through to go from old garbage to new materials ready to build new products.

Aluminum soda cans are the prime example. We drink a can of soda, crush the can, throw it in the trash and take it to a recycling center to get cash for it. Seldom do we think of the metal recycling equipment that will turn this can into new recycled aluminum or the metal recycling equipment that will sort the cans from the non-aluminum cans. As sure as we may be that all our cans are aluminum, occasionally a can that doesn't belong may wind up in the bag. This isn't a problem, however, with the high-tech metal recycling equipment large companies use to decipher which belongs and which doesn't.

Aluminum cans may actually go through a number of kinds of metal recycling equipment including:

• Densifiers are hydraulic compacting machines that press the soda cans into briquettes of medium density so they meet a certain specification.

• Baling Presses make a light to medium density bale of cans, which get tied with wires.

• Magnetic Separators go through the can mixture and remove any magnetic materials.

• Eddy Current Separators separate the aluminum cans from cans that are non-metallic.

• Shredders are high horsepower grinding machines that shred the cans into small pieces.

• Screeners are used to remove moisture and debris from the cans.

• Buying Lines are combination separator/convoy and scales that are used in the buying of cans from the public.

• Scales are used to weight the cans before they get shipped out.

Aluminum cans and materials are not the only recyclables that require and use metal recycling equipment. Steel uses equipment such as baling presses, tin presses, conveyor belts, magnetic cranes and cross belt magnets. Glass recycling uses equipment such as glass crushers, conveyor belts, screeners, magnets and ceramic detectors. As you can see, many of these types of metal recycling equipment are used for all kinds of materials but are done separately. Because they are shredded and put into melting furnaces for the final recycling stages, they materials all need to be kept separate for their respective uses. In fact, the furnaces are probably one of the most important of the metal recycling equipment that is used in the entire process. It is, after all, what gives us our final new product.