Spanish aluminium recycling association ARPAL revamped

The Spanish Aluminium Recycling Association ARPAL made a new start in April with the newly appointed president Mr Clemente González Soler. Clemente González is president of Grupo Alibérico, a leading European aluminium group of companies active on a wide range of aluminium end-use markets including packaging. Clemente González has a long experience in the aluminium industry for which he has been working for almost 40 years in different leading positions. He is vice-president of the European Aluminium Foil Association EAFA and president of the Container Group of EAFA.

 

The board of ARPAL also nominated José Miguel Benavente, former president of the association, as Secretary-General. José Miguel Benavente has been working with ARPAL from the very beginning of the Association. Doctor in Civil Engineering, he dedicated 20 years of his professional life to aluminium recycling and is considered today as one of the leading Spanish experts in this field.

The association welcomed two new member companies: Alibérico Packaging, which includes the plants Palco and Alubest, and Alcoa, which has re-joined the association. Alcoa has eight production centres in Spain and is the largest local manufacturer of aluminium rolled and foil products. Novelis, Rio Tinto Alcan and Hydro Aluminium are the other member companies of ARPAL. 

 

The main priority of ARPAL for the coming years is to further improve the Spanish aluminium packaging recycling rate. For this purpose ARPAL teams up with all Spanish stakeholders involved, including packers & fillers, retailers and local authorities. Specific aluminium packaging promotion and collection activities have already been started and will be further extended to cover in particular ‘out of home’ consumption. For example, recycling bins have been installed on several airports and plans will be developed to cover also other transport means such as high speed trains.

 

By working closely together with scrap merchants, retailers and other interested parties and pointing at the high scrap value of the collected aluminium packaging ARPAL  hopes to improve the quality of the collected aluminium packaging. Collected aluminium packaging can be used again for the same purpose – e.g. can-to-can recycling - or for the production of other valuable aluminium products such as castings for automotive products, building facades or even bicycles. One tonne of recycled aluminium saves up to 8 tonnes of CO-2 equivalents.