Does this process of using waste plastic and recycled steel sound like a good idea?

Under the process, waste plastics are fed into electric steel-making furnaces as an alternative source of carbon and heated to super-hot temperatures of 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 Fahrenheit).

Apparently, the high temperatures allow the carbon content in the plastic to react sufficiently with the scrap steel to produce new steel. It also has some serious environmental bonuses.

Anybody with a better knowledge of these things care to shed any further light on it?

In celebration of Codeye returning from the depths of internet hell, I’ve posted something about getting rid of your blogroll inspired by an infinitely better piece about getting rid of your blogroll.

There is no nicer feeling than waking up to find that Australia have been bowled out for 190.

It might be even nicer watching the whole thing unfold back home.

As we say in certain Nelson circles - they don’t like it up ‘em.

UPDATE: We’re 21 for 5. I’m maybe not missing the Ashes as much as I was.

This is the real deal with knobs on.

I give you Don Justo’s homemade cathedral:

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In 1961, at the age of 29, he laid the first stone in the construction of a “cathedral” that he has built virtually single handed since then on a plot of land 50 metres by 20 metres that he inherited from his parents. It has been rated by some as perhaps the strangest building in the world.

This is no “model” cathedral and he is neither a qualified architect, nor engineer, nor bricklayer — he is a farmer. “The plans have only ever existed in my head” and have evolved over time in response to opportunity and inspiration.

The cathedral already has a dome (modelled on St Peters) rising to some 40 metres, some 12 metres in diametre — whose steel girders were raised with the aid of his six nephews using pulleys. He was unable to get the loan of a crane.

Most of the construction materials used are recycled (buckets, pieces of wood, plastic tubes, etc) — occasionally obtained from business and construction companies with excess materials for a job. Progress on the cathedral is therefore visibly marked by the nature and quality of materials that he acquires in this way. The columns are moulded using old petrol drums, the window arches carry the marks of the tires they were moulded in and bicycle wheels have been used as pulleys.

And the poor old sod fully expects it to be pulled down as soon as he shuffles from this mortal coil.

The biggest keyword search term that I find lurking in the tombs of The Tinbasher is for ’scrap metal prices’.

I didn’t really have any original thoughts when I included it as a category other than for it to be more of a scrap bin than a serious resource for scrap metal prices.

Even though there are a couple of posts relating to scrap metal pricing, all the posts in the scrap metal category hardly relate at all. Truth be told, they hardly relate to sheet metal.

The other day somebody commented:

“Found your site useful but would like to see Scrap Metal Prices for HMS, Rail, and bushlinks in India and China.”

When I originally looked round for scrap prices and such I came up against a bit of a problem - that you often have to pay for up to date scrap metal prices. And you often have to pay quite alot.

I’m not saying that I’ve scoured the internet extensively, but I reckon to have had a damn good look. Also, at Butler Sheetmetal, we tend to take our scrap round the corner, get it weighed and then get paid.

SO, the question is……Do any of you use any decent free resources?

Or, if you track scrap prices how do you do it?