Where Have All The Junkyards Gone?

Forty years ago our country's landscape was littered with junkyards — expansive lots piled high with rusting heaps of demolished cars and broken down appliances. They were everywhere, and it was not a pretty sight.

But then the Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) was born on a simple concept: use scrap metal as the feedstock and melt it with electrical energy. While the initial motivation was purely economic, the result was a boon to the environment and a new highly efficient steel industry.

So What's a Car This Decade May Turn Into Soup Cans Next Decade and Turn Into Appliances the Decade After That

WHAT RECYCLING STEEL KEEPS OUT OF OUR LANDFILLS:

  • Last year over 14 million vehicles were recycled
  • Last year over 2.6 million tons of appliances were recycled
  • Last year nearly 1.6 million tons of steel cans were recycled
  • Last year heavy structural beams and plates were recycled at a 96 percent rate while 60 percent of rebar was reused

In the beginning, EAF-generated mini mills were suppose to be little operations that produced low-end materials such as rebar, but Nucor had other ideas. With all of that scrap steel available, new technology was developed to turn that scrap into quality, and in less than a decade mini mills were competing with "old school" integrated steel mills. And unlike most recycled products that carried a premium price, recycled steel from a mini mill became cheaper to buy than virgin steel from an integrated mill.

Suddenly, people stopped thinking of scrap steel as garbage and started thinking of it as an economically valuable commodity. And unlike so many other recycling options back then, it actually paid to recycle steel. It paid the original product owner, the scrapyard owner, the broker and the recycling steel mill.

Best of all, the story continues as 64 percent of all steel is now recycled and kept out of landfills. So a car in this decade may turn into soup cans in the next decade and turn into appliances in the decade after that.

Menu