Explain why recycled material is sometimes cheaper and sometimes more expensive than newly extracted material. [4]
Question 1 Report
Explain why recycled material is sometimes cheaper and sometimes more expensive than newly extracted material. [4]
Answer Details
Recycled material does not always have one predictable cost because savings in extraction can be offset by processing the waste stream.
It can be cheaper because recycling avoids extraction and much of the primary processing. For metals such as aluminium, producing primary metal uses a very large amount of energy, so avoiding this stage can greatly reduce cost. [2]
It can be more expensive because scrap must be collected, sorted, cleaned and reprocessed. Mixed or contaminated waste, especially some polymers, requires labour-intensive processing. [1] Recovered material can also be less consistent, so it may need testing or blending before use, making its total cost exceed that of newly extracted material. [1]
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