Aluminium industry reinforces commitment to sustainable packaging in Europe

At its annual Packaging Seminar held yesterday in Helsinki, the European Aluminium Association (EAA) reaffirmed its commitment to sustainable packaging in Europe with the launch of its new brochure, “Aluminium packaging: convenient, safe and infinitely recyclable”.

“While the EU Commission recently adopted a Circular economy package, featuring new recycling definitions, calculation methods and targets, EAA’s annual packaging seminar puts the focus on best practices across Europe to optimize recycling processes and technologies. Our new brochure launched on this occasion gives a concrete overview of the aluminium industry’s vision for more sustainable packaging in Europe. As a sector, aluminium already achieves almost 60 per cent recycling for all aluminium packaging and even 68 per cent for beverage cans. Moreover, our ambition is to increase these figures, particularly in view of the ambitious recycling targets recently proposed by the European authorities”, underlined Laurent Musy, chair of EAA’s Packaging group.

“However, we are also counting on our partners in the waste management chain to address the need for better collection and sorting of the highly valuable aluminium fraction. Producer Responsibility Systems must be improved, with Member States given the necessary time and resources to invest in their existing waste recovery infrastructure”, concluded Laurent Musy.