Ardagh Metal Packaging, Crown Holdings fund equipment grants

Beverage can manufacturers Ardagh Metal Packaging (AMP), Luxembourg, and Crown Holdings Inc., Yardley, Pennsylvania, have funded two can capture equipment grants.

The companies say the funding will help capture approximately $325,000 of additional cans, which, when recycled, could result in energy savings equivalent to powering more than 900 U.S. homes per year.

GreenWaste, San Jose, California, and RecyclingWorks, Elkhart, Indiana, are the two material recovery facilities (MRFs) receiving the grants.

“Ardagh Metal Packaging is proud to jointly fund, with Crown, these grants that continue to demonstrate there is a significant opportunity for MRFs to capture millions of aluminum beverage cans each year,” AMP North America CEO Jens Irion says.

RELATED: The Recycling Partnership awards UBC grants | Ardagh, Crown Holdings fund aluminum can capture grants

GreenWaste, which serves 300,000 households in the San Jose area, says it will use the grant toward a second eddy current separator that will capture undersized aluminum and previously lost items from the MRF’s screening process. It expects to capture 260 new tons of aluminum each year with this equipment.

RecyclingWorks reaches more than 200,000 households and says it will use the grant toward a robotic sorter that can be installed on the residue conveyor. It says the equipment will reduce the amount of aluminum going to landfill by 45 tons.

“A consumer putting an aluminum beverage can in the recycling bin, getting hauled to a MRF and then being missorted and not recycled is unacceptable,” says John Rost, vice president of global sustainability and regulatory affairs at Crown. “We need more of our aluminum back to provide a consistent domestic supply of material that people in good manufacturing jobs at our facilities ultimately turn into new aluminum beverage cans.”

These two grants are in addition to the four that AMP and Crown have previously funded as part of a program in collaboration with The Recycling Partnership, Washington. The companies say the six equipment grants have catalyzed the installation of equipment that will capture more than 115.5 million aluminum beverage cans each year.

This grant program with The Recycling Partnership is part of a comprehensive effort with the Washington-based Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) to spur the installation of equipment in MRFs to capture missorted aluminum beverage cans.

“These improvements to our recycling systems will provide meaningful gains in aluminum circularity,” says Adam Gendell, director of materials advancement at The Recycling Partnership. “We see tremendous opportunities to continue upgrading our recycling infrastructure and we’re grateful to partner with the Can Manufacturers Institute to pursue our shared mission of reducing waste and increasing circularity.”

CMI expects to announce additional can-capture grants and leases to recycling facilities funded by AMP and Crown.