By Gabriella Payne
Major metals recycling supply chain, InfraBuild Recycling, are celebrating National Recycling Week by encouraging more people and businesses to think about their waste and how it could be repurposed and reused.
For 25 years now, the National Recycling Week initiative has successfully encouraged Australians to improve their recycling habits, promoting sustainability and a greener future.
This year’s National Recycling Week, which runs until Sunday 15 November, is themed around “recovery – a future beyond the bin”, a phrase which resonates with the team at InfraBuild Recycling.
Each year, the company works hard to collect and process more than 1.4 million tonnes of scrap metal and repurpose it for future use, providing a sustainable alternative to landfill and a smart, environmentally friendly building material.
In fact, according to the World Steel Association it takes 20 trees to build a typical 180m2 wood-framed home, but just five recycled cars to build a steel-framed home.
Chris Morgan, the general manager of InfraBuild Recycling said that “with global demand for steel set to double by 2050, it has never been more important to develop and implement environmentally sustainable methods of steel manufacturing”.
Mr Morgan said steel is “almost infinitely recyclable” and that “for every tonne of steel scrap that is recycled, we save 1.5 tonnes of carbon, 1.4 tonnes of iron ore, 740 kilograms of coal and 120 kilograms of limestone”.
While this is undeniably beneficial for the environment, InfraBuild Recycling believes there is still room for improvement in terms of scrap metal recycling in Australia and are aiming to increase their volumes in years to come.
Ian Harrington, manager of the local Dandenong InfraBuild Recycling branch, said that National Recycling Week is an important event as it reminds and inspires businesses across all sectors to re-evaluate their own recycling schemes.
“We take scrap from residences, metal merchants, automotive dismantlers, demolition and construction companies, farmers and manufacturers who generate scrap metals,” said Mr Harrington.
Mr Harrington and the team at Dandenong’s local branch would much rather see these old metal scraps be put to good use than end up in landfill.
“If you have an old stove, washing machine, lead batteries, copper wire, aluminium or brass, require a permanent bin or need a large site clean-up, just give us a call,” he said.
