What parts are responsible for the millions of tonnes of metal waste across our manufacturing industries?

I am researching particular components in manufacturing industries with high wear rates.

Example industries include: mining and minerals, metal manufacturing, paper, food, waste and recycling, transport etc.

Example of components that wear out and need to be scrapped are: slurry pumps, crusher hammers, rollers, bearings mixing blades etc.

Please leave your comments or opinions of what parts, components, systems or processes generate large amounts of metal waste in our manufacturing industries.

Let me know what industry you work in and the challenges you face with worn out high value parts - Even better if you can share any data! 

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  • Not sure if I'm on the right tangent, but what comes to my mind is "disposable" tooling - hacksaw blades, drill bits even screwdriver bits. Even screws (let alone nails) are rarely re-used these days. Each part may be very small (grams) but as there as so many people using so many of them in daily life (both professionally and DIYers), I would have thought the totals would added up fairly quickly. Likewise some parts are 'over supplied' - e.g. the last lock I bought came with two faceplates and two latch plates (one each brass and chrome) - so half were intended to be thrown away unused.

       - Andy.

  • Hi Andy, an interesting thought. I am sure so much waste comes from the examples you have given. Unfortunately, the only data available classes all this as "domestic waste" and we do not have any information in the public domain that is more detailed.
    It would certainly be interesting to run a survey and try to establish how much "over-supplied" or "multi-option" parts contribute to this issue, thanks for the thought provoking comment.

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  • Hi Andy, an interesting thought. I am sure so much waste comes from the examples you have given. Unfortunately, the only data available classes all this as "domestic waste" and we do not have any information in the public domain that is more detailed.
    It would certainly be interesting to run a survey and try to establish how much "over-supplied" or "multi-option" parts contribute to this issue, thanks for the thought provoking comment.

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