Canmakers are seeking high-quality aluminium scrap to contribute to higher recycled content in cans, it was highlighted at the World Aluminium Summit in London this week.
The annual CRU meeting at the Renaissance Hotel in London’s St Pancras heard that recycling is “integral to reaching decarbonisation goals”.
A panel hosted by climate change and decarbonisation director Chris Bayliss from the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI), heard contributions from Sandrine Duquerroy Delesalle, vice president global sustainability and external affairs at canmaker Crown, Ramon Arratia, chief sustainability officer and vice president of public affairs at canmaker Ball, and from Moj Jalali, commodity price risk manager for metals, at Heineken.
For brewer Heineken, Jalali said scrap metal pricing had been an issue “well before we saw the tariffs come into play”, as “multiple industries” were all going after “the same critical resource”.
He added: “If we look at the fundamental reasons, it’s been said many times that recycling is integral to reaching our decarbonisation goals.”
“You see higher prices, challenges with availability, and we’ve seen scrap prices go up for several months… and if you look at the spread between primary aluminium and UBCs, it’s been narrowing for several months.”
He said: “Prices are a great indicator of what’s happening in the market, and that’s what we see now.”
The MidWest Premium (price for primary aluminium) was at its highest since 2022 he said.
Jalali also pointed out that it was “advantageous to sell scrap into the US” because tariffs did not apply to scrap exports to the US, adding that the rising prices for scrap were also “disrupting trade flows”.
Sandrine Duquerroy Delesalle from Crown highlighted the US paradox. “In the US, there is a low recycling rate, but high recycled content in cans. So, the Americans are buying cans all over the place.”
She said: “We are in a scrap race.”
Crown also wanted to send a “signal” to the market that it wanted more low-carbon aluminium, “but I think the recycled aluminium content is so important for us. Of course, it’s part of our decarbonisation pathway. Collection is key”.
Duquerroy Delesalle said sourcing good recycled content was a priority for Crown, and argued that it required a circular economy and a policy framework.
The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation in Europe was helping to achieve collection rates of around 75%, according to the latest figures available for 2022, but she said: “That isn’t good enough.”
She pointed out: “460 billion cans were consumed globally last year; the US consumed 120bn cans approximately last year” but it only collected 43%.
“That is more than a million tonnes of aluminium that is lost, and that’s just the [United] States.”
Chris Bayliss from the ASI added: “Seven million tonnes annually post-consumer is lost to landfill, or unrecovered or unknown. One million tonnes of which are just cans, just in the States.”
More conversations were needed across the value chain and industry also had to look at the role of technology, said Ramon Arratia at Ball.
“Technology is going to make possible [the] collecting of UBCs and other materials from material recovery facilities (MRFs). There are people in the US right now looking at how we can recover UBCs from landfill, from transfer stations. This is the right time for industry to come together,” he said.
Duquerroy Delesalle added: “We have a regionalised market. What we are focusing on today at Crown and in our industry in general is to collect in the markets where we have a presence, and to try and advocate for those waste bodies – I mentioned PPWR in Europe – it’s something we’ve really pushed for 90% collection targets.
“We also have mandatory deposit return schemes and all of these new policies will help collect more and more cans, and ensure high quality. The framework is there.”
