Wisconsin recycling plant secures Ardagh Group and Crown funded aluminium can capture grant

The City of Milwaukee and Waukesha County in Wisconsin, US jointly owned recycling plant secures an aluminium beverage can capture grant.

Ardagh Metal Packaging, the sustainable beverage can manufacturer and rigid packaging supplier Crown backed the grant program. The fund will be utilised to install equipment at the facility to capture crushed or flattened cans.

The recycling plant will now source more than 27 million aluminium beverage cans per year and drive annual revenue of more than $400,000.

Rick Meyers, Department of Public Works sanitation services manager, City of Milwaukee said: “Thank you to Ardagh and Crown for investing in recycling facilities to help more aluminium beverage cans complete their circular journey to becoming a new can.”

“This additional eddy current will help us ensure increased capture of aluminium beverage cans, which will deliver significant revenue to help sustain city services, as well as enabling our residents to make a larger environmental impact from recycling.”

The single-stream material recovery facility (MRF) functionalized by Republic Services processes 65,000 tonnes of material collected from the City of Milwaukee and 26 other communities in Waukesha County annually.

This is considered as the fourth MRF to obtain funding from a grant programme facilitated by the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), the national trade association of the US’s metal can manufacture industry and its suppliers.

However, the other recipients of the grant comprise Curbside Management in Ashville, North Carolina, GEL Recycling in Port Orange, Florida, and Independent Texas Recyclers in Houston, Texas

Robert Budway, President of CMI said: “CMI members Ardagh and Crown are catalysing a significant environmental and economic impact through funding these can capture grants at US recycling sortation facilities, which result in many millions more aluminium beverage cans being recycled annually.”