US aluminium landfill loss can become domestic supply opportunity, says waste intelligence firm

The United States discards more than USD 1 billion worth of aluminium cans into landfill each year even as it pays record prices to import the metal, according to Greyparrot, the London-based developer of AI-powered waste intelligence. The company says the lost cans represent about 11 million megawatt-hours of wasted energy annually.

Data from Greyparrot’s Analyzer systems running above the sorting line at Circular Services’ Sunset Park material recovery facility (MRF) in Brooklyn, New York, shows that 89 per cent of aluminium is recoverable once it reaches the belt. The facility processes roughly 91,000 cans per day—about 514 tonnes per year—and recovers nearly nine in ten of the cans that cross its sorting lines.

Greyparrot says its findings, timed for Climate Week NYC (20–27 September), underscore the disparity between scrutiny over AI data centre electricity use and the far larger energy burden of primary aluminium production. Citing research from the Aluminum Association and the Can Manufacturers Institute, the firm notes the US landfilled USD 1.2 billion of aluminium in 2023, with 61 billion of the 107 billion cans shipped ending up in landfill—a 43 per cent recycling rate, the lowest in decades.

Import dependence and energy intensity

The US continues to import aluminium for products ranging from beverage cans to cooking foil, even as prices rise amid tariffs. Greyparrot points to 2025 trade data showing USD 26.5 billion of aluminium imports, with net imports covering around 60 per cent of US supply.

Recycling aluminium requires about 95.5 per cent less energy than producing primary metal from ore, according to the International Aluminum Institute—meaning every can recovered avoids the need to manufacture a new one and eases strain on power grids.

Join the fourth edition of webinar "Hedging for recyclers - Become an expert in 6 hours" by Jorge Dyszel.

AI waste intelligence turns “invisible” supply visible

Greyparrot deploys its Analyser camera systems above sorting belts at recycling facilities across seven US states and more than 20 countries, characterising material, product and brand in real time. The company says its Analysers have now surpassed one trillion material detections for clients including WM, Circular Services, Veolia, Biffa and FCC.

At Sunset Park, the AI system has measured an 89 per cent recovery rate for aluminium passing through the facility. Nationally, Greyparrot says fewer than four in ten cans are recycled at all, arguing that collection—not sorting—is the bottleneck.

“Every era of computing has made something invisible legible, and waste is the last unindexed system in the global economy,” Greyparrot co-founder Ambarish Mitra said. “The world is counting the energy going into AI to the last megawatt-hour. Nobody is counting the energy going into landfill. Aluminium is the clearest case: recycling it takes 95 per cent less energy, because the energy is already in the metal. Waste intelligence makes that visible for the first time, and what it shows is domestic supply hiding in plain sight.”

Greyparrot claims facilities using Analyzers have achieved 10–30 per cent efficiency gains, delivering more than USD 2 million in savings in a single year, driven largely by recovering more high-value plastics and aluminium previously lost to residue.

“Recycling has been treated as a public service when it is a supply chain,” Circular Services CEO Ron Gonen said. “The aluminium moving through our facilities is a domestic commodity stream, and now we can measure it in real time. That changes what we can recover and what we can prove to the customers who buy it.”

Greyparrot says the data highlight a strategic opportunity: turning landfill losses into a measurable, domestic aluminium stream while cutting the energy intensity of the US metals supply.

Explore secodary aluminium products and connect with verified suppliers on the Al-Biz marketplace.