Recycling rate of aluminium beverage cans nears target of 75% by 2015
The Aluminium Association, Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) and Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) announced yesterday that 61 billion cans were recycled in 2011.
They added the rate was up 7% from 58.1% in 2010.
The findings highlighted the recycling rate was more than double that of other beverage containers, driven by the increase of 25% in imports.
Rise in demand
There was also a rise in demand for recycled aluminum and used beverage containers (UBCs).
The trade bodies stressed the infinite recyclability in aluminum cans and that the can-to-can closed loop process happens in 60 days.
The Aluminium Association’s Can Committee, made up of Alcoa, Tri-Arros Aluminium and Golden Aluminium said the target of the industry was a 75% recycle rate by 2015.
Allison Buchanan from Alcoa, the Aluminium Association's Can Committee chair, said: "Cans are an obvious green packaging choice because it takes 95 percent less energy to produce a can from recycled material, resulting in significant energy, emissions and resource savings.
“The amount of energy saved just from recycling cans in 2011 is equal to the energy equivalent of over 17 million barrels of crude oil.”
Buchanan added that same amount of energy that recycling cans saved is also what it takes to produce the 29 billion plastic water bottles Americans consume each year.
Out of landfill
Robert Budway, president of the Can Manufacturers Institute, said: "Metal can be used forever if we keep it out of landfills, and higher recycling rates benefit the economy, people and the planet, optimizing the can's environmental footprint."
Aluminum cans have the greatest amount of total recycled content with an industry average of 68%, with Novelis working on Evercan, which would be a can made with fully recycled content.
Joe Pickard, chief economist at ISRI, said: "In 2011, aluminum recovered from purchased scrap in the United States increased 8 percent to more than 3 million metric tons, while at the same time total US aluminum scrap exports rose 12 percent to more than 2.1 million tons."
