The Recycling Journey: Aluminum Cans
Do you know where your recyclables go after you put them in the recycling bin? Used items journey through several stages of the recycling process as they are transformed into renewed, marketable items. Knowing the stages of the recycling process helps us to understand why it is so important to recycle right.
Since an aluminum can is an item that can be recycled over and over again with little to no loss of material quality it is considered to be a circular material. A used aluminum can goes through many stages on its journey to becoming a renewed can. Follow along to see what happens through all six stages!
Let’s walk through an aluminum can’s recycling journey.
The Aluminum Can Recycling Journey
Stage 1: Some aluminum cans begin their journey through the recycling process when they are placed in recycling bins at home, work, or on the go. Others begin their journey by being returned to deposit redemption sites. These include cans that contained carbonated soft drinks, beer, sparkling water, and other beverages covered under the New York State Returnable Container Act.
Stage 2: For the next stage of the recycling journey, aluminum cans and other locally-accepted items are collected by recycling haulers who transport the materials to a transfer station or material recovery facility (MRF, pronounced “murf”). Note that for the rest of the recycling journey, transportation occurs between each major stage.
Stage 3: Once at a material recovery facility (MRF), aluminum cans are separated from plastics, cardboard, paper, glass, and other metals by passing over a special type of magnetic field known as an “Eddy current”. The sorted aluminum is then compressed into bales (imagine giant cubes of aluminum) which are sold to processors across the state, country, and world.
Bales of aluminum prepared to be sold on the commodities market.
Stage 4: Next, recovered aluminum is prepared for manufacturers by undergoing a series of pre-processing steps. This includes shredding the material, removing the old coatings, remelting and ingot casting, and producing aluminum sheets. The renewed aluminum sheets are then sold and transported to manufacturers of aluminum products.
Stage 5: This is the stage of the process where the recovered aluminum that has been traveling through the recycling system finally gets transformed by manufacturers into renewed, marketable products such as cans, foil, pots and pans, and many other items. Using recovered aluminum to create renewed products saves lots of energy and limits the need for the extraction of raw natural resources like bauxite ore, which is environmentally destructive.
Stage 6: This is where recycled aluminum begins its next life. From start to finish, an aluminum can can go through the entire recycling process in as little as 60 days. You can support the recycling industry by choosing items that are made with high percentages of “post-consumer recycled content”. This means some or most of an item is made from the materials we put in our recycling bins. Aluminum products tend to have much more recycled content than items made from other materials such as plastic. Finally, the recycling process restarts here when we place locally-accepted items back into the recycling bin.
By gaining insight into the recycling process, we are able to understand why it is so important to recycle right. The circular journey of an item, like an aluminum can, illustrates how materials are able to be transformed into renewed marketable items and helps us to protect the environment and conserve valuable resources for the future.
To learn how the recycling process works for a variety of materials, visit https://recyclerightny.org/where-your-recyclables-go.