What’s the cost of making a steel can?

Question

What’s the big deal about recycling them?

Answer 1

Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. Iron constitutes about 5% of the Earth's crust.

Cans (as in drink and food containers) are typically made from aluminium, not steel, and this makes up about 7 to 8% of the Earth's crust.

The deal about recycling is that digging up these elements and turning them into a form that can be used (be it iron or aluminium) takes a lot of energy (as well as creating big holes in the ground).

The energy is obtained by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil or natural gas. There is only a limited amount of these fuels, and burning them also releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and so increases global warming.