Aluminum Association Announces Recycling Target
The Aluminum Association on Nov. 18 announced an industry wide effort to increase the industry's recycling rate for used aluminum beverage containers to 75 percent by 2015. Today, the aluminum industry recovers approximately 54 percent of the aluminum containers produced in the United States.
While aluminum cans are already the most widely recycled beverage container in the country, each year Americans still discard over 50 billion aluminum cans which end up in landfills.
Raising the recycling rate of aluminum cans to 75 percent would result in:
•an energy savings of 139.7 million MBTUs in avoided energy
•the avoidance of nearly 9 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, which is equivalent to removing more than 1.6 million cars from the road over a year.
To achieve the recycling target, the association will work in partnership with other stakeholders to increase public education, grow the recycling infrastructure, and explore new policy initiatives.