Cans are not coming back, but more are going out

According to a report by Ball Corporation, the USA recycles only about 45 per cent of the beverage cans consumed by its citizens.

Since the USA consumes more than 80 billion cans per year, that's an awful lot of cans in litter and landfill. They dug up that landfill in 1000 years, and that can will still be an aluminium can. It is not going to break back down to bauxite or something.

Increasing the ratio of returns would save an incredible amount of CO2 emissions - recycling the can means that new raw metal is not needed. But Ball also measured in terms of the dollar savings. According to their report, some US$6.5 billion could be saved if 100 per cent recycling were achieved. Even improving the rate by half therefore contributes huge savings.

Interestingly, the report says that US States that apply a deposit on the can have achieved higher recycling rates than those States that do not.

But more are going out

Another story that went across my desk struck me, as I had just read the Ball Corporation story.

According to an article published by AL Circle, the USA is exporting more scrap aluminium than ever.

According to that report, the USA exported 675,000 tonnes in the period January-April 2024, up by 13,000t over the same period in 2023. The major buyer of this metal was India.

It makes sense that India would be a buyer of scrap aluminium - they remelt it and sell it as secondary metal to China and for their domestic market. However, it makes little sense for the USA to export scrap metal, at least in light of the capital investment in new remelting facilities in various states.