Europe's Aluminum Can Recycling Hit Elevated Levels

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The latest report published by Metal Packaging Europe and European Aluminium indicates that aluminum beverage can recycling in 2020 continued to remain at elevated levels.

According to the report, the overall recycling rate for aluminium beverage cans in the European Union, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland stood at 72.8%. The rate witnessed a dip by 3% from 2019. The aluminum can consumption recorded 9% growth during the year.

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The total amount of aluminium recycled from cans increased significantly by around 20,000 tonnes from the previous year to touch record levels of 510,000 tonnes in 2020. This has resulted in total GHG savings of nearly 4.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, said the report.

The total tonnage of recycled alumninum cans increased, despite the new EU recycling reporting rules and tremendous growth in consumption of aluminum cans. The switch by many EU Member States to reporting at the point of entrance of a recycling facility, instead of the collection phase has led to recycling drop for many packaging materials.

As more and more countries turn to Deposit Return Systems (DRS), the industry expects to recycle more cans.