The beauty of aluminium is that the metal goes on and on -  being made into products for the transport, building and packaging industries, and then recycled. Over and over again.

More than 75% of all the aluminium ever produced is still in use, and your role in returning the small packaging items you use every day  -  drinks cans, empty aerosols and clean aluminium foil trays and pie cases -  helps maintain that cycle, extending the life of the metal for decades to come.

Why is recycling aluminium so important ?

While primary production is a complex process, recycling simply involves re-melting the metal so it can be again.   This means that recycling aluminium takes only five per cent of the energy used to make it from the raw material, bauxite.

Or, to put it another way, recycling is 20 times more energy efficient than primary production.

There are collection systems for aluminium cans, aerosols and foil across the UK, and a drinks can you give for recycling today is often made into a new can, filled and put back on the shelf in just six weeks.

This means that the single can you put in the recycling box today will have made eight new cans in a year, and saved enough energy to make 160 new cans.   Quite a result.

Carbon footprint

Saving energy also means reducing carbon emissions: recycling a tonne of aluminium saves 95% of the greenhouse gases emitted during primary production, as well as the 95% energy saved.  

This means a reduction from 9.6 tonnes of greenhouse gases emitted for every tonne of primary metal produced to just half a tonne for recycled aluminium  -  a saving of 9 tonnes.