Recycling Aluminum

Recycling Aluminum

Feb 10

I realize that not everybody buys drinks in aluminum cans, but so many of us do that it has become the most common container recycled. There are many non-profit groups and individuals who recycle aluminum for money, but there are other positive outcomes of recycling your cans. Recycling aluminum cans saves precious natural resources, energy, time and money. In 2007, 54 billion cans were recycled, saving the energy equivalent of 15 million barrels of crude oil – America’s entire gas consumption for one day. Recycling a single can saves enough energy to run your television set for three hours.

I also appreciate that aluminum cans can be made into new aluminum cans forever. Paper can only be recycled about five times, at which point the pieces become too small to hold the paper together, but aluminum cans are able to be recycled an infinite number of times. Also, the aluminum industry has invested so much in the nation’s recycling infrastructure that you can recycle cans in almost every city in America. Recycling aluminum is a quick process, too. Within 60 days, a can is recycled, turned into a new can, filled with product, labeled and is back on store shelves.

Many people will never recycle anything they can’t get paid for, and aluminum is the only thing individuals can sell. The price is now about two cents per can, which means you can get back about 10 to 15 percent of your purchase price on soda by taking the cans to a can buyer. For your own calculations, there are 31 soda cans per pound and the current street price is 60 cents per pound. This chance at revenue helps many non-profits like churches and scout troops raise needed money. There are homeless people collecting cans to stay alive and purchase food and drink. For a small office of ten people drinking two cans a business day, recycling revenue is a hundred dollars per year.

I would love for you to donate your aluminum cans to the M.e.t., but in reality, we don’t care where you recycle; we just want you to recycle.  We need the revenue as much as anybody else, and use the can money to subsidize other items like batteries and glass bottles that we lose money on. The important thing to remember is that recycling cans saves energy and can make you or someone else some money.