UK Industry

Metals recycling is a 4.5 billion pound UK industry, processing ferrous and non ferrous metal scrap into vital secondary raw material for the smelting of new metals. The industry employs over 8,000 people and makes a net contribution to UK balance of trade. Worldwide, over 400 million tonnes of metal is recycled each year.

Virtually all metals can be recycled into high quality new metal. The process varies for different metals, but generally produces metals of equivalent quality. For example Steelmaking using the electric arc furnace process uses scrap metal as the major raw material. This method is typically used for high quality tool steels and stainless steel. Smaller quantities of scrap can also be used in basic oxygen (blast furnace) steelmaking.