Rethinking Lifestyle

Since we live close to the growing edge of housing development on the south side of Steinbach, I go dumpster diving sometimes. Recently, I discovered 3- 15′ lengths of 1/2″ aluminum cables each consisting of 18 bare strands of aluminum all encased in two layers of poly. At 5 1/4 pounds each, the three cables are worth only a few bucks as scrap, presumably because there are large reserves of bauxite ore that can be extracted and processed. Eventually those will be exhausted, sooner if we don’t recycle the metal.

I assume that these cables were left over from hooking the house electricity panel to the Manitoba Hydro supply, and they were not “worth” recycling, to be sent to the landfill as garbage instead. This should be a crime.

I initially took one cable home with me, thinking that I could use the aluminum wires to tie things up, like a snow fence or a lattice for plants. However, the other 2 cables in the dumpster bothered me enough that I went back days later and rescued them as well. I can’t find anyone who has a re-use for these cables, so I plan to take them to the Metals bin at the local landfill, even though at the present scrap price, this is hardly worth the trouble economically, only as a matter of principle.

According to Wade Wiebe, aluminum is a very versatile metal, but it is undervalued because of oversupply and nearly perfect recyclability (something like 75% of all mined aluminum is still in use today).

Wade has a pet theory that aluminum will increase a lot in value as energy prices rise. It requires more energy per tonne to mine than iron or cement. Once it’s mined, however, recycling it takes 95% less energy – which is why it’s sometimes referred to as an “energy bank”.