The overall recycling rate for aluminium beverage cans in Western Europe further improved in 2007 and stands now at 61.8%, an increase by 10% compared to the year 2005. This 10% increase represents an impressive saving of 300,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas equivalents.
The total number of aluminium beverage cans consumed in Europe rose from 28.3 (2006) to 32.0 billion units in 2007, resulting in an overall aluminium share of nearly 70% in Europe. In Western-Europe consumers use on average 40 aluminium cans per capita. The consumption of aluminium cans in Central & Eastern Europe grew by 2.5 billion units to a total number 12.5 billion cans, an increase of 25% compared to the year 2006.
The aluminium beverage can market grew in particular in Northern and Eastern-Europe, while several Western-European countries such as France, Spain, Greece and Germany demonstrated solid growth rates. The total market including Central & Eastern Europe grew by 14% to more than 37 billion aluminium cans produced. This includes also exports to non-European countries.
While the Northern-European deposit schemes maintained or even increased their high recycling levels, countries with mixed waste and separate metal packaging waste collection schemes further improved as well due to better collection and innovative sorting and recycling techniques. Countries such as the Netherlands, which rely heavily on the incineration of unsorted household waste, have invested in aluminium collection from bottom ashes and booked considerable progress.
EAA strongly recommends authorities and waste management operators to invest more in the latest available sorting and recycling technologies as pay-back times are relatively short given the high scrap value of well sorted aluminium, even in difficult economic times.
EAA is confident that due to the high scrap value of aluminium and the environmental advantages of recycling a can made of recycled aluminium saves up to 95% energy compared with cans entirely made of primary aluminium recycling rates in Europe will further increase. End-of-life recycling of used aluminium beverage cans back into new cans or other highly valuable aluminium products such as bicycles, window frames or engine blocks helps our partners such as the can-makers and the beverage producers to lower their carbon footprint. It also fits very well within the overall European policy to move towards a recycling society in which material resources are used in a more sustainable way.
Fur detailed per country overview, please download the PDF version of this release.
For the Spanish version, click here.
For further information please contact:
Mr. Maarten G. Labberton
Phone: +32 2 775 63 19
E-mail: labberton@eaa.be
