Currently, the US recycles only 52% of the aluminum cans being used in the country. Compare this to the global average of 63%, or global leaders like Brazil (94%) or Japan (90%). The US is the world’s biggest consumer of aluminum cans, and we should all be aware of the environmental benefits of recycling them.

According to Greg Wittbecker, Director of Corporate Metal Recycling for Alcoa, the US should appreciate the environmental gains of simply increasing the nation’s recycling rate to 75%. “If we could recover and recycle 75% of the aluminum cans being currently tossed into landfills — 600,000 metric tons of aluminum — we could save 1286 megawatts of generated electricity. That’s the amount produced by two coal fired power plants, and consumed by two aluminum plants,” says Greg. “Replacing this production with recycling would keep 11.8 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from being generated and released into the atmosphere.” It would also reduce the amount of mercury going into the environment, since power plants emit polluting mercury when they burn coal.”

Recycling aluminum saves enormous quantities of energy, otherwise required to make virgin aluminum. Recycling a ton of aluminum uses just 5% of the energy required to make virgin metal. Every ton of recycled aluminum saves about 14,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.

In Omaha, our single stream curbside recycling program makes it easy to recycle aluminum at home. If your company doesn’t currently offer single stream recycling, then have your facilities manager contact Omaha’s FirstStar Fiber right away.

Tags: firststar fiber, recycling