The Benefits of Steel in Modern Building Practices
Building with Bridger Steel's metal is beneficial to your home, as well as the environment. Our metal roofing and siding panels use durable, recycled steel that will protect your home while adding to its design. Recycled steel will not lose its strength or quality throughout its lifetime and can be easily recycled.
Using recyclable materials on a project is one of the most important components of Green Building and designing a sustainable project. Its role in Green Building covers the use of recycled materials, combustion components used in the production of recycled materials and how trash is disposed of on the job site.
Bridger Steel understands how important using recyclable material on a build is for the environment and our customers. Our steel meets the requirements of a LEED certified project material with the amount of recycled content the steel contains. When qualifying for LEED verification, recycled content is calculated by the percentage of recycled material in the new cold rolled steel. This new cold rolled steel can be composed of up to 50% recycled content.
When purchasing steel products in North America, you are purchasing a recycled product. Steel milled in North America contains an average of 25% recycled materials. Steel designated for use as coils contains an even higher percentage, sometimes as high as 75% recycled material. Recycling is a vital process of the steel milling process, as steel has an almost unlimited capacity for being repeatedly recycled for future use.
As the recycling process is integral the producing steel, it also helps eliminate landfill waste and reduce CO2 emissions created from milling raw or non recycled material. This CO2 reduction comes from the use of furnaces in the milling process. Steel made from electric arc furnaces uses over 90% recycled steel to create new steel, a very environmentally friendly process that also often incorporates carbon capture programs and use of greener fuels for furnaces. Due to the increased demand for greener, more recycled content, the North American steel industry has reduced CO2 intensity per ton by 37 percent since 1990.
Based on data from SRI, an average 2000 sqft. home will require approximately 40-50 trees, or around 1 acre of forested woodlands to build. To compare the equivalent of using steel equates to approximately 6 scrapped vehicles.
Here are a couple key factors to consider about metal in the building process:
Another benefit to metal roofing, siding, and trim is that it is 100% recyclable. The waste that comes from an installation or demolition can be recycled on the job site to qualify for additional LEED points, and provide recycled material for use in other steel building materials.
To learn more about our recycled roofing materials, contact our team today.
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