Post Gazette reported that steel, an industry that may forever be linked to Pittsburgh, was an early adopter of recycling. Today, more steel is recycled, by volume, than any other material. Pittsburgh has always been a green city, it's just that for the industries that have been strong here, green as in environmentalism, lined up with green as in cash.

Steel and aluminum, two of the traditionally strong industries in Pittsburgh, were early adopters of recycling, because it was cheaper to melt down old products to make new products than it was to go out and mine the raw materials.

Mr Bill Heenan president of Steel Recycling Institute said that "What you and I call junk yards is the original recycler. We look at the Golden Gate Bridge as scrap and inventory. Eventually, we'll get it back."

Mr Courtney Boone spokeswoman for US Steel said that "That big pipeline that runs from Clairton up to West Mifflin and North Braddock is a very large recycling program. When you reduce your energy, you reduce your environmental presence."

Mr Heenan said that the steel industry also has found a good use for slag as ballast for the railroads saving the environmental effects both of mining coal and from creating slag heaps. Slag high in nitrogen also helps fertilize fields.

(Sourced from www.post-gazette.com)