Rebuilding trust in recycling

Scrap-fed aluminum investments continue to be announced, such as the new facility our cover profile subject Owl’s Head Alloys is preparing to open in West Point, Mississippi.

The growing number of investments has many people wondering where all this scrap is going to come from.

The Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) revealed a plan to help with that by boosting the recycling rate for aluminum used beverage cans (UBCs) to 70 percent by 2030 and 90 percent by 2050. The most recent data, from 2020, has the UBC recycling rate at 45 percent.

"Seeing recycling in action is the first step to rebuilding trust.”

CMI’s plan, announced in late 2021, includes helping to pass and implement well-designed deposit systems at the state and federal levels. But CMI members, including Beatriz Landa of Novelis Inc., speaking at the Recycled Materials Association 2024 Roundtables in September, are saying progress in this area is unlikely.

“We’ve exhausted the deposit conversation; there is not an appetite for it,” she said.

Getting residents to put cans in their curbside recycling bins poses another challenge, with Landa noting 60 percent of the UBCs going to landfill are from homes with curbside recycling. This lack of participation, she said, is influenced by distrust in the recycling system.

Recyclers must rebuild trust in the system by being more vocal about what they do. Open your facilities to the community to show them what actually happens once their recyclables, whether UBCs or old cars, leave their homes. Seeing recycling in action is the first step to rebuilding trust.