Throughout Massachusetts businesses and individuals are recycling old scrap metal. At many yards you can get paid for your scrap iron, copper, non-ferrous & ferrous metals. Aside from a quick check, a great reason to recycle scrap metal is for the environmental benefits. Selling scrap metal isn’t just great for making some quick cash, but it stimulates the local economy and helps create green jobs locally. Here are a few green reasons to recycle some metal today.
1. Lowers Risk of Toxic Leaching
There are a variety of metals that are unsafe to place in a landfill. Many metals, especially those found in batteries and in electronics can cause toxic chemical leaching. Leaching is when electronic wastes decays in a landfill. Mercury, lead, and cadmium can all end up in the soil, ground water, or in the air near a landfill. This pollution is dangerous to both wildlife and humans.
 2. Decreases Landfill size
America’s landfills have become a serious problem for pollution. Landfills take up large amounts of space, cause pollution, and are one of the biggest factors in environmental harm in our country. When so much garbage decays so close together it can cause serious adverse effects. Landfills also take a lot of funds to manage and maintain. Decreasing the size of our landfills goes a long way in protecting our country.
3. Limits Greenhouse Gases
Greenhouse gases are the largest threat to our climate. Greenhouse gases erode our ozone and increase the overall temperature of the planet. Recycling metal limits the energy consumed to mine and smelt new materials. Recycled metals require much less energy to recycle into new goods and products.
4. Less Energy Consumed
As mentioned in the previous point, increasing how much metal we recycle decreases how much energy we use to create new metal products. Whenever we can consume less energy we produce less waste and less byproducts.
Scrap Metal Near You
If you would like to help the environment by recycling old scrap metal, come to Second Street Iron & Metal in Everett. Our team would be happy to provide the best prices to you for your metal. If you have any questions about the metals we take or what we pay please visit our website or contact us online.