How Are Aluminium Cans Recycled in the UK

Be it fizzy drinks or beer, every household in the UK consumes around 340 aluminium drink cans every year. Unlike plastic, aluminium cans stand out for several reasons especially in the realm of packaging materials. One of the major reasons is recycling; aluminium cans can be recycled infinitely without losing their quality or purity.

Why Aluminium Can Recycling is Relevant in the UK?

Around 9.591 billion aluminium drink cans are produced in the UK every year, which indeed adds up to a million tons of wasted aluminium cans worldwide every year. To reduce the volume of waste sent to landfills, which are rapidly reaching capacity, we can consider recycling, a crucial aspect of waste management and environmental conservation.

Aluminium is a finite resource and recycling it helps conserve this sustainable material, ensuring they can be reused multiple times without losing their properties. Most importantly, it also saves a significant amount of energy (that is up to  95%) compared to producing them from raw materials (such as bauxite ore) and also reduces greenhouse gas emissions, helping combat climate change.

According to the data from Food & Drink International, a record 10.7 billion cans were recycled in the UK during 2023 – the highest number ever collected. This record-breaking stats of can recycling was revealed by Alupro, the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation, and Every Can Counts, Alupro’s not-for-profit communications programme. They found that, through kerbside, bring, and on-the-go recycling systems over 162,000 tonnes of aluminium packaging were recycled in 2023– a 13% year-on-year uplift and a 4% increase since the previous record in 2021.

How do you recycle aluminium cans?

Being 100% recyclable, aluminium cans tossed into a recycling bin will be completely recycled and back on the store shelf in just 60 days.

So, how does the aluminium can recycle loop work? Let’s see below a step-by-step process of can recycling:

• Collection: The foremost step of aluminium can recycling is collecting the cans, which can be done in numerous ways:

• Can banks: Recycling banks located at supermarkets, council-run recycling sites, offices, shopping centres and leisure facilities. The trashed cans from can banks are collected by waste management companies or your local council. 

• Kerbside recycling: operated by your local council making the doorstep collections as convenient as possible

• Cash from cans: exchange your empty cans for cash which can be used for raising funds for a good cause.

• Sorting: Once collected, the cans are delivered to recycling facilities for sorting and contamination checking.  Sorting is typically done using magnets, eddy currents, and manual sorting to separate aluminium, steel and other recyclables. After sorting, they are baled and then taken to a recycling plant.

• Reprocessing: In this process, baled materials are loaded onto a conveyor, which takes them to the shredder. The mechanical hammers shred the flattened cans into small pieces, about the size of a 50p. These shreds are then taken for melting in a furnace to 750°C. But if the shred contains any decoration, then it should be removed before melting. Decoration is removed by blowing hot air at 500°C. Finally, the molten (liquid) metal flows into a mould and is cooled by jets of water, forming an ingot. Each ingot - weighs 27 tonnes and is 15 metres long - contains enough metal to make 1.5 million drink cans.

• Rolling: The ingots are transported to the rolling mill where they are pre-heated to 600°C and undergo their first rolling. They are then cold rolled to the exact specification and thickness required by the can maker.

• Can Making: The recycled aluminium sheet is lubricated and fed through a cupping press, which cuts, or blanks, thousands of shallow cups. The sides of the cups are then rammed through a series of rings to raise the cups to form the can shape at high pressure. After the external decoration has been applied, the cans are dried in an oven and then passed through a necker/flanger to prepare them to take the can end.
  
  However, to prevent the contents reacting with the metal inside, the inside and outside of the can is treated with a lacquer, which forms the base coat for the external decoration.

• Filling and selling: Using high-pressure air and water, the cans are cleaned and filled with carbon dioxide gas. The liquid then goes in, the can ends are attached and the can is sealed up mechanically. Around 2,000 cans can be filled this way every minute and then they’re ready to dispatch to a distributor or retailer and then back to you, the consumer.

• Once the can has reached you there starts a loop – where you buy, drink and recycle all over again.

The Future of Aluminium Can Recycling in the UK

As there is no limit for aluminium recycling, it has already been an essential practice in the UK that offers numerous environmental, economic, and resource conservation benefits. Considered to be sustainable metal, the recycled aluminium is used in various industries, contributing to a more sustainable and circular economy. Along with aluminium, steel cans can also be recycled time and time again without loss of quality, as it is such a widely used material and the ranges of possible uses for it are endless.

As the latest statistics show, the UK is making significant strides in can recycling. Continued efforts will help you to achieve even higher recycling rates and further enhance our environmental stewardship.