Ferrous metals can be recycled with steel currently being essentially the most recycled resource on earth. Ferrous metals consist of a considerable proportion of iron and the inclusion of carbon along with other substances produces steel. The following are ferrous metals; Carbon Steel, Stainless steel, Cast Iron, Wrought Iron.

The steel industry has been actively recycling for over 150 years, in substantial part because doing so is financially advantageous to do so. It is actually cheaper to recycle steel than to mine iron ore in addition to manipulating it throughout the production process in order to create new steel. Steel does not lose any of its natural physical properties throughout the recycling procedure, and provides drastically reduced energy and material requirements in contrast to refinement through iron ore. The energy saved through simply recycling minimizes the yearly energy use of by 75% and that is enough to be able to power 18 million homes for 1 year.

A non-ferrous metal is any metal, which includes alloys, that doesn’t contain iron in large amounts. Generally higher priced than ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals are widely-used because of desirable properties including low weight, higher conductivity, non-magnetic or resistance to corrosion. Some non-ferrous materials are also used in iron and steel industries.