Aluminium recycling campaign desires Staffordshire’s to make use of their metals lying at home

400 million aluminium cans, foil trays and aerosols are estimated to be in use every year in Staffordshire.

The ‘Make Your Metals Matter’ campaign wants people to recycle all the metal packaging found around their house, including aluminium food and drink cans, household aluminium wrapping foil, foil trays and empty aerosols

The used aluminium or metal packaging can be recycled into new products at a far lower cost to the environment than making them from raw materials.

The aluminium drinks can from recycled materials save up to 95% of the energy and greenhouse gas emissions needed to make both aluminium and steel from raw materials.

The mathematical calculation of aluminium and other metal packaging used in Staffordshire’s homes each year gets collected for recycling; it could save around 10,787 tonnes carbon dioxide, which is equivalent to 2,295 cars taking off the streets every year.

The Metal Matters programme is managed by the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) on behalf of the funding partners.

Rick Hindley, executive director of project managers Alupro, said: “It is great to be able to work in partnership with Staffordshire Waste Partnership to promote the recycling of metal packaging. This campaign has delivered significant increases in the amount of metal packaging collected for recycling in other parts of the UK, so we are aiming to repeat – and hopefully better this – in Staffordshire.”

The campaign will include leaflets sent to 60,000 homes along with an online and social media campaign highlighting the benefits of recycling. Metal Matters campaigns have run in over 100 local authority areas and reached over 6 million households since 2012. The Staffordshire campaign is being jointly funded by Metal Matters, an industry partnership comprising the UK’s leading producers, users and recyclers of metal packaging and Staffordshire Waste Partnership.

Mark Winnington, Cabinet Member for Economic Growth at Staffordshire County Council said: “People in Staffordshire are already committed to recycling and reducing waste which is great news.

We’re excited about this latest campaign and want to encourage people to think about recycling more metal packaging found throughout their home, not just in the kitchen but in the bathroom, and bedroom too. Food and drink cans, foil and empty aerosols are all easily and endlessly recyclable.

And remember that every can recycled saves enough energy to run a TV for four hours – so a small action like putting your empty bean tin into your recycling container can make a big difference”