For the European Union 27 including EFTA countries and Turkey, the overall recycling rate has increased further, by 2.4 percent, to 66.7 percent in 2010 (the latest figures available).
This success is based on the numerous collection and recycling initiatives throughout Europe, which are strongly supported by Hydro in good cooperation with our customers and other aluminium companies.
In 2010, overall consumption went up – aluminium beverage cans, too. A further 2 billion units added up to a total utilization of 36 billion cans in 2010.
This means that at least 24 billion aluminium beverage cans have been recycled, resulting in potential total greenhouse gas saving of 2.5 million metric tons – the equivalent of taking as many as 1 million passenger cars off the roads for a whole year.
The European Aluminium Association (EAA) has now reported recycling results for aluminium beverage cans in Europe for 20 consecutive years. In the early 1990s, only 30 percent of all beverage cans were recycled. This figure rose to 52 percent in 2005.
Today, the EAA Packaging Group is confident that Europeans will be recycling three out of four cans by 2015, with further growth potential towards 2020.
Several countries are already close to or even above this result, due to their highly efficient and well-established collection and sorting infrastructures.
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| Used Aluminium Beverage Can Recycling Results, Europe 2010 (Source: European Aluminium Association) |
Countries with well-managed “Green Dot” systems usually collect aluminium beverage cans together with other metal packaging and can easily sort out the aluminium fraction afterwards, for remelting by the aluminium recycling industry.
The same holds true even more for deposit systems, which generate a clean fraction of used aluminium beverage cans, immediately ready for recycling back into new cans or other valuable aluminium products such as window frames, bicycles or engine blocks, with an energy saving of 95 percent compared to primary metal production.
Every can counts
In order to capture the remaining cans, the aluminium industry, together with the beverage can makers, is focusing on cans that are consumed “outside the home,” for example, at the workplace or at events and festivals.
The “Every Can Counts” concept was developed, first in the UK and later introduced in France, Austria, Romania, and Hungary, and soon in Ireland. “Every Can Counts” points out the importance of recycling each and every beverage can, regardless of where its contents are consumed.
With games, humor and in a very good spirit, the initiative to recycle beverage cans is out and about in Austria as “Jede Dose zählt” – raising awareness about the importance of beverage can recycling in a fun way: “Drink, crush and collect” is the slogan.
Hans-Jürgen Schmidt, head of Product Ecology in Hydro’s Rolled Products business, says: “No aluminium packaging should go to the landfill. Therefore, it is important to encourage the local authorities and waste management companies to improve existing collection and sorting facilities by using the latest available sorting technologies such as eddy currents and high-tech recognition systems, which can separate the aluminium packaging items from other packaging in a split second.”
In this respect, EAA is very happy with the recent European Parliament report on “Resource Efficiency,” which calls on the member states to encourage the use of such technologies.
Additionally, the European Parliament recognized for the first time materials such as metals as “permanent materials.” Due to its characteristics, aluminium is infinitely recyclable.
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| RECYCLING BY THE POOL: Hans-Jürgen Schmidt, head of Product Ecology in Hydro`s Rolled Products area, and Welf Jung, sales director of can maker Rexam, launched a promotion stand for can recycling at a popular Vienna open-air bath. |
