Facts About Aerosol Cans

Aerosol cans are used on a daily basis for several functions, such as hairspray, shaving cream, spray paint and disinfectants. About 90 percent of all aerosol cans are made of steel and the remaining 10 percent are made of aluminum. Both types can be recycled. Here are some facts regarding the disposal and recycling of aerosol cans:

• All steel containers are made up of an average of 25 percent recycled steel. Using recycled steel for production consumes 65 percent less energy than creating the containers from raw materials. This type of energy savings is enough to light the city of Los Angeles for almost a decade.
• More than 3 billion steel aerosol cans are made in the U.S. annually. Theoretically, if everyone recycled these containers, there would be enough extra steel to manufacture about 400,000 automobiles.
• About 19 billion steel containers are recycled and turned into new products each year. This equates to about 600 containers recycled every second.
• Recycling one ton of steel saves about 2.5 tons of iron ore, 1 ton of coal and 40 pounds of limestone. Using recycled steel also assists in cutting down on water usage and the release of air pollution. This is due to the fact that the process for creating steel from scratch utilizes a large amount of resources, where using recycled steel allows the production of containers to bypass the steel creation stage.
• Steel containers take about 80 to 100 years to decompose.
• Consumer aerosol products produced in the U.S have not used chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) since 1978, when they were banned.

Recycling aerosol cans is important to the environment. Take the next step and recycle your containers properly.