reuse and recycling

• sustainable development is an approach to development that takes account of the needs of present society while not damaging the lives of future generations
• if people use less, it reduces the use of the resource and the things needed to produce it
• chemists can develop and adapt processes that use lower amounts of finite resources and reduce damage to the environment. Chemists have developed catalysts that reduce the amount of energy required for certain industrial processes.
• copper is a finite resource. a way to improve its sustainability is by extracting it from low-grade ores (ores without copper in)
• bioleaching - bacteria used to convert copper compounds in the ore into soluble copper compounds, separating out the copper from the ore. the leachate (solution produced by the process) contains copper ions which can be extracted by electrolysis or displacement with a more reactive metal
• Phytomining - growing plants in soil that contains copper. the copper builds up in the leaves, the copper can be harvested, dried and burned in a furnace. The ash contains soluble copper compounds where they can be extracted
• recycling uses less energy than mining new metals and cuts down waste.
• Metal are recycled by being melted and then casting them into the shape of the new product.
• depending what the metal from recycling will be used for, the amount of separation required can change. waste steel and iron can be kept together as they both can be added to iron in a blast surface to reduce the amount of iron ore required
• glass bottles can be reused without reshaping.
• glass is usually separated by colour and chemical composition before being recycled. the glass is crushed and melted to be reshaped. Might also be used for a different purpose such as insulating glass wool for wall insulation