Alupro unveils roadmap to increase UK aerosol recycling rate at the BAMA Innovation Day

Alupro formally unveiled its "Roadmap to increasing UK aerosol recycling" at this week's BAMA Innovation Day, a long-term strategic plan to spur a significant increase in national capture and recycling rates. Most metal aerosols comprise aluminium (70 per cent) and steel (30 per cent).

"Launching our roadmap comes as part of The UK Aerosol Recycling Initiative's continued work to improve consumer education, identify solutions to maximise recycling rates and secure long-term investment into further improving national recycling infrastructure. Our simple goal is to see aerosols become a central part of recycling behaviour in the waste management landscape of tomorrow," said Tom Giddings, executive director at Alupro.

Alupro has started a project to find and remove the barriers that prevent aluminium and steel aerosols from successfully helping to accomplish these goals. Greater capture rates must be attained to deliver greater recycling rates (i.e., the amount of aerosols that, after collecting and sorting, make it to a metals reprocessor for recycling).

The study, created on behalf of The UK Aerosol Recycling Initiative, a working group of partners from all points along the value chain, identified five major obstacles standing in the way of increased aerosol recycling rates and a suggested remedy for each.

These include boosting kerbside volumes by ensuring collection consistency, investing in new ways to handle non-empty containers, raising consumer awareness through standard labelling, and improving the overall design of aerosol containers to maximise the value of recycled materials. A vigorous sampling of materials at MRFs can also improve data quality.

Under the new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws, "non-beverage" formats, such as aerosols, will be more crucial in achieving high, mandated recycling objectives for steel (85%) and aluminium (50%) by 2030.

To explain best practices to increase capture rates in a post-EPR, post-Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) world, the roadmap also includes the findings of intensive consumer research, analysis from local authorities, and in-depth interviews with key industry experts.

Over 80 per cent of the 650 million metal aerosols manufactured in the UK annually are expected to be consumed in homes. Along with all other metal packaging, household aerosols should be collected for recycling through kerbside collection programmes.