A comprehensive report released by the Container Recycling Institute, a nonprofit recycling industry authority, shows that implementation of a national beverage container deposit return system (DRS, aka bottle bill) would result in the recycling of nearly 815,000 more tons of aluminum used beverage cans (UBCs). This would raise the national UBC recycling rate to 85% – an increase of 48 percentage points over the rate in 2021.
Titled “Improving Efficiency and Sustainability in Aluminum Beverage Can Recycling,” the report also finds:
- Improving existing state DRS programs with deficiencies would raise the national aluminum UBC recycling rate by 3.2 percentage points;
- Implementing DRS laws in all states that have introduced DRS legislation since 2021 would raise this rate by 20 percentage points; and
- Implementing DRS laws in the 10 non-deposit states with the highest populations would increase this rate by 24 percentage points.
The CRI report – made possible with generous support from the Arconic Foundation – is one of the first to address the issues involved in manufacturing aluminum beverage cans, and how these cans differ from other aluminum products. CRI prepared the report with RTI International by reviewing previous industry studies and conducting its own research, analyses and data compilation.
Aluminum Beverage Can Production, Use and Recycling: The Big Picture
In the U.S., aluminum UBCs are one of the most valuable types of consumer recyclables and have high potential for direct recyclability with limited losses. However, the report finds that current aluminum UBC recycling practices aren’t the end solution to limiting the laborious and energy-intensive extraction of bauxite ore, from which aluminum is made.
Given that recycling of aluminum saves more than 90% of the energy required to make the same amount of aluminum from virgin materials, the report indicates that “aluminum material losses at curbside recycling, materials recovery facilities (MRFs) and secondary melters are financially and environmentally significant enough to warrant discussion on new and expanded methods of aluminum beverage can recycling, sorting, processing and even design.”
Aluminum beverage can production nationally is at an all-time high, with nearly 110 billion units generated in 2022, and the U.S. consumes more than one-quarter of all the aluminum cans across the globe. However, the national aluminum UBC recycling rate has been trending downward over the last decade, and the 2021 rate of 37.2% (as calculated by CRI) is dramatically lower than that in many other industrialized countries.
CRI President Susan Collins said, “It is imperative that the domestic aluminum can industry improve its recycled content status, because the global aluminum can industry simply cannot meet its sustainability goals without such improvement. Also, additional material throughput is needed to support the multi-billion-dollar investments in two new secondary melters being built in the U.S., which will bring the total number of these facilities nationally to nine. Any further declines in the U.S. aluminum UBC recycling rate, or any legislative repeals of state DRS programs, would threaten UBC supply levels for the melters, putting a financial strain on their businesses.
Economic and Environmental Impacts
Losses and other deficiencies associated with current aluminum UBC recycling practices come with economic and environmental consequences, including:
The economic value of the more than 1 million tons of wasted aluminum beverage cans in 2021 was approximately $1.6 billion.
This represents a lost opportunity to reduce annual U.S. energy consumption by more than 160,000,000 million BTUs (based on the U.S. EPA WARM), which equates to the average annual energy consumption of approximately 2.1 million households.
If these more than 1 million tons of wasted UBCs were recycled, potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions would total 9.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (also using the EPA’s WARM). This equates to the annual amount of GHG emissions from approximately 2.1 million passenger vehicles.
Strategies to Increase Aluminum UBC Redemption Rates
According to published data, 73% of U.S. households currently have access to either curbside recycling or drop-off programs. Thus, CRI’s Collins said, expansion of all types of recycling opportunities – including curbside, DRS and away-from-home recycling – and increased collaboration among the programs can ensure the highest aluminum UBC recovery rates.
However, she added, previous research, as well as analyses completed for the aluminum UBC report, conclusively demonstrate that DRS programs provide the most effective means to achieve meaningful recycling rate improvements.
Based on industry data, CRI calculated the U.S. recycling rate for aluminum beverage cans on deposit as 74% and the rate for cans not on deposit as 26% (2021 data). The 10 U.S. states with DRS programs account for almost half of the total tons of aluminum beverage cans recycled in the U.S. – 300,716 of the 633,500 tons total (2021 data).
DRS programs recycle greater numbers of UBCs because beverage cans on deposit are handled and sorted differently than those in curbside systems. Cans are kept as separate commodities throughout the DRS process, meaning they are not mixed with other materials, resulting in clean, high-quality UBCs more likely to be made into new containers.
