Every phone in your drawer holds a few grams of (11), the reddish metal that carries electricity through its thin (12). Cans are made of something lighter: (13), which can be melted and reused forever without losing quality. Sorting these metals used to be slow work. Now a strong (14) passes above the moving belt and lifts out everything made of steel, while machines blow the lighter pieces aside. One old factory near the port sorts eight hundred tons a week. The metal that comes out is cheaper than metal dug from the ground, and it does far less (15) to the land.
The wind farm off our coast looks simple from the beach, but each tower is a (16) of steel as tall as a church. Salt water attacks metal quickly, so every joint is painted and (17) before it leaves the factory; even so, engineers check for (18) twice a year. The farm now supplies a fifth of the island's electricity. It has not replaced the old power station in the south, which still burns fossil (19), nor the (20) plant that has been running since 1985. Together, though, the three keep the lights on.