Making aluminium is costly so please recycle and buy recycled

Recycled aluminium foil and golf ball size foil for recycling (photo: J May)

Making aluminium uses a tremendous amount of energy and its mining causes environmental damage. Therefore it is important to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle aluminium and to buy the resulting recycled aluminium. All forms of aluminium can be recycled and it is a valuable recycled product.

Aluminium foil is recognised if it squashes into a ball. Collect the foil (from Easter eggs, etc.) and form into a golf ball size, so it does not slip through the cracks in the recycling sorting depot.

Aluminium comes from the ore bauxite which is strip-mined in tropical and subtropical locations. This means that a lot of original vegetation is destroyed as strip-mining destroys large areas of land. In Australia, topsoil, logs and rocks are set aside. After the bauxite is removed the sites are rehabilitated with the topsoil, logs and rocks followed by planting and seeding. (Bauxite Mining, Australian Aluminium Council Ltd). The soil level is now lower, the vegetation is altered and toxins arise from bauxite dust and water leaching. (What Aluminium Extraction Really Does to the Environment).

The manufacture of aluminium from bauxite is an expensive and energy intensive exercise, using so much electricity that, in some cases, whole coal plants have been devoted to aluminium smelters. So please reduce aluminium use, recycle it and buy recycled aluminium.