Casting a wide range of products from engine blocks to faucets, aluminum wheels to golf clubs, Ohio metalcasters also generate some two million tons of byproducts annually, much of which is still sent to landfills. Despite their industrial appearance, metalcasters are some of the world's most complete recyclers. For years, foundries have recycled millions of tons per year of scrap metal into new metal products. Less well known are the other types of materials recycled within the foundry industry's, such as sands, slags, wax, wooden pallets, packaging materials and steel drums.
Spent sand is the largest by-product stream of the metalcasting industry.
Then the sand either must be discarded or reused outside of the foundry process itself. Foundries in Ohio did not have access to technical information developed in other states, and vice versa. As a result, foundry associations and individual companies have banded together to support the development of a national framework supporting local reuse activities. A central technical library is being coordinated, with abstracts published on the Web site. Spent foundry sand is a high quality sand with uniform physical characteristics, which makes it reusable in many different ways.