May 25, 2005
Aluminum Halts Decline in Can Recycling
The true story about the container being half full or half empty.
The aluminum industry says that the can recycling rate in the US for 2004 was 51.2%, a 1.2% increase over the rate in 2003 and the first increase since 1997.
In 2004, 100.5 billion aluminum cans were produced in the US, and 51.5 billion were recycled, up about 1.6 billion last year, the Aluminum Association trade organization said. Production remained about the same in 2003 and 2004.
But the Container Recycling Institute, a nongovernmental organization that supports deposit systems, says calculations suggest that the rise is due in part to the increase in the redemption value of beverage cans in California, which resulted in the collection of 680 million more containers in the state last year. Also contributing to the up-tick is the increase in imported used aluminum beverage cans.
CRI’s research director Jenny Gitlitz said 42% of the reported increase occurred in California as a result of the redemption value moving from $0.02 to $0.04 in January 2004. According to CRI, 30% of the recycling increase occurred because 490 million more scrap cans were imported into the US in 2004 than in 2003.
“Since these imported scrap cans have been counted in the recycling rates of Canada, Mexico, and other foreign countries, it is double-counting to also include them in the US domestic recycling rate,” said CRI executive director Pat Franklin.
The US EPA does not include imported scrap in the domestic recycling rate.
The two factors account for 72% of the reported increase of recovered cans. CRI says the recycling rate was actually 45.1% in 2004, up less than a full percentage point from 44.3% in 2003.
Gitlitz noted that 55 billion aluminum cans were not recycled in 2004, equivalent to the annual production of three or four primary aluminum smelters. Nine billion more cans were wasted in 2004 than in 2000.
“We applaud the public education and special programming promoted by the aluminum and beverage industries to increase recycling,” Gitlitz explained in a prepared statement, “but it is clear that the lion’s share of the slight increase last year was due to factors other than public education and special programs.”
"We are very pleased in the increase in recycling rates," said Bill Barker, group director for global beverage cans at Rexam and chairman of the Can Manufacturers Institute. "But there is still much work to do. We are looking forward to working with the aluminum sheet suppliers, the beverage marketers, and legislators to promote the values of recycling to consumers to keep this momentum."
© Victor House News, Co.
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