what happens when aluminium drink cans are recycled?

Did you know that every year around 5 billion aluminium drink cans are sold in the UK? That's a lot of fizzy pop and beer! Alcan estimates that every household in the UK consumes around 200 aluminium drink cans every year. Each one of these can be recycled back into new drink cans over and over again.

Recycling aluminium cans saves energy and natural resources, and also reduces the pressure on landfill sites - if all the aluminium cans sold were recycled there would be 14 million fewer dustbins emptied into landfill sites every year.

Aluminium cans are recycled in the UK by Alcan, which operates Europe's only dedicated aluminium beverage can recycling plant. Here cans are melted down and turned into ingots of aluminium which are used to make new cans. This is called closed loop recycling, because old cans go in and metal to make new cans comes out.

How can you tell if a drink can is made of aluminium? Around 75% of drink cans are made of aluminium. An easy way to check is to test the side of a can with a magnet - if the magnet doesn't stick it's aluminium. Aluminium cans are lighter than steel and the metal is more shiny - if you compare the base of a steel can to one made of aluminium you can see the difference.

To find out more about aluminium can recycling, click here.