UK screwcap recycling rate half that of Germany’s

The average recycling rate for aluminium closures has reached 40% in Europe, and as high as 80% in Germany, according to the European Aluminium Foil Association.

Data released yesterday showed that screwcaps are widely recycled in Europe, although the differences in recycling rates vary widely, with Germany disposing of less than 20% of all aluminium closures used, while the UK discards as much as 60%, and some countries around 80%.

Highlighting the importance of recycling this material, the association stressed that re-using aluminium requires 95% less energy than would be used in its primary production.

The information was released as part of a Europe-wide campaign to raise awareness of the benefits aluminium closures.

As previously reported by db, the new campaign is dubbed “Aluminium Closures – Turn 360˚” and will run throughout 2013, supported by a multilingual website, www.aluminium-closures.org.

Despite their small size, aluminium closures collected together with mixed packaging are easily separated.

They can then pass into an aluminium recycling stream for re-melting to be used again for other valuable aluminium products.

The recycling rates were calculated on the basis of publicly available national aluminium recycling rates and market data from member companies of the European Aluminium Foil Association (EAFA) .

Such data shows the consi­derable extent to which consumption volumes and recycling rates vary from one country to another.

According to the EAFA, recycling rates for closures vary from over 80% in Germany to about 40-50% in countries such as the UK and Italy, and 20-30% in those nations with a small market share for screwcaps.