I Like Aluminum

I have had a strange fascination with aluminum lately, so why not talk about it here. Aluminum, a silvery white and ductile member of the boron group of chemical elements. It’s nonmagnetic and non-sparking. It has the symbol Al; its atomic number is 13 (I did not know that till today. 13 is the day I was born and my lucky number.).  Aluminum is the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust, and the third most abundant element therein, after oxygen and silicon. It makes up about 8% by weight of the Earth’s solid surface. Aluminum is too reactive chemically to occur in nature as the free metal. Instead, it is found combined in over 270 different minerals. The chief source of aluminum is bauxite ore.

Aluminum is remarkable for its ability to resist corrosion (due to the phenomenon of passivation) and its low density. Aluminum is one of the few metals that retain full silvery reflectance in finely powdered form. Global production of aluminum in 2005 was 31.9 million tonnes. It exceeded that of any other metal except iron (837.5 million tonnes).

* Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours — or the equivalent of a half a gallon of gasoline.

* 350,000 aluminum cans are produced every minute!

* More aluminum goes into beverage cans than any other product.

* Once an aluminum can is recycled, it can be part of a new can within six weeks.

* Because so many of them are recycled, aluminum cans account for less than 1% of the total U.S. waste stream, according to EPA estimates.

* During the time it takes you to read this sentence, 50,000 12-ounce aluminum cans are made.

* An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!

* There is no limit to the amount of times an aluminum can can be recycled.

* Aluminum can manufacturers have been making cans lighter — in 1972 each pound of aluminum produced 22 cans; today it yields 29 cans.

* We use over 80,000,000,000 aluminum pop cans every year.

* At one time, aluminum was more valuable than gold! (Before the Hall-Héroult process was developed, aluminum was exceedingly difficult to extract from its various ores. This made pure aluminum more valuable than gold. Bars of aluminum were exhibited alongside the French crown jewels at the Exposition Universelle of 1855, and Napoleon III was said to have reserved a set of aluminum dinner plates for his most honored guests. [source:Wikipedia])

[Source: Recycling Fun Facts]

Aluminum never dies!!!

-Cara