The growth of steel-can recycling Americans recycle 58 percent of their steel cans. In 1996, the U.S. recycled nearly 19 billion steel cans, including food, paint, and aerosol cans, the SRI says. The amount of steel recovered from these cans totaled more than 1.6 million tons. Steelmakers appreciate steel cans' known, consistent, and homogeneous chemistry, the SRI says. The steel used to make cans is among the highest quality grades of steel made.
Type D is for deep-drawing applications and is used infrequently for cans.
Type L. A major deterrent to charging more steel cans is the fluctuating cost of the commodity, Crawford says. The amount of cans bought by Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point, Md., facility varies depending on their price, says Charles Brown, the plant's general foreman of scrap handling. An HRB is another name for a loose, wire-wrapped bale of cans. There currently is about four pounds, or 0.20 percent, of tin per gross ton of steel cans. Pearlite improves yield and tensile strengths.