Leicester City Council with Alupro aims to increase citywide aluminium foil recycling rate

According to a recent report, Leicester City Council has teamed up with Alupro, the aluminium packaging recycling organisation, to help residents recycle more of their aluminium foil trays and wrapping foil. 

Alupro runs the “Foil in Love with Recycling” campaign, funded by the European Aluminium Foil Association, to help the aluminium packaging industry achieve and exceed recycling rates, a current set for 64 per cent by 2020.

Anyone living in Leicester can easily recycle used aluminium foil by putting it in their orange bags or recycling bins. But only 20 per cent of the foil thrown away in Leicester is currently put into recycling. On average, each home in the city uses about 1.8kg of aluminium foil each year.

Jodie Angold, Leicester City Council Recycling Officer, said: “The orange bag scheme has made it really easy for people to recycle a wide range of household waste, but foil often gets forgotten about, or people simply don’t know it can be recycled.”

Rick Hindley, executive director at Alupro, said: “It’s surprising how much foil we use in our homes, from ready meal and takeaway trays, to chocolate wrapping foil and yogurt pot lids. All of these aluminium items can be recycled.”

Leicester City Council has offered the following aluminium foil recycling tips and advice:

· Scrunch foils to determine if they are recyclable or not. If the foils stay scrunched then they are recyclable for sure, but if they spring back then they are metallised plastic film and cannot be recycled currently.

· Make sure foils are clean and free from food residue before you pop the into the orange bag.

· Scrunch all the smaller pieces of foils to make them one large ball of foil, so as to make them easier to recycle.