Resources Packaging
Metals have been labelled as non-renewable. But a new campaign launched by the Beverage Can Makers Europe is seeking to reposition aluminium and steel as permanent materials. Rob Bell hears why
policymakers worldwide push to regulate for more efficient use of limited resources, the BCME (Beverage Can Makers Europe) has launched a campaign to cement metals’ position as an essential component of the world’s packaging mix.
A
BCME’s concern is that metals risk being pigeonholed as ‘non- renewable’ and therefore lose ground to paper, card and bio- plastics, so the trade body has begun a battle to reposition met- als such as aluminium and steel as ‘permanent’ materials, which deserve to be prioritised alongside other recyclable but renewable resources.
The BCME’s Anders Linde says: “The problem for metals is we have been labelled as non- renewable, but that is irrelevant because metals are not part of the biosystem. For paper, derived from plant material, and plastics, which are derived from fossil fuels and also from the biosystem, it is relevant to talk about renew- able and non-renewable, but for metals and other minerals non- renewability is a nonsense. “This has given us the label of being a material with problems to use in the long term, with people believing we dig metals out of the ground and once we do they are gone, so there are misconceptions involving metals. We want to cre- ate an understanding of metals as a permanent material.”
Paper is the ultimate renew- able packaging material. While its recyclability is limited as it degrades, limiting the number of times it can be recycled, paper is renewable in that producers can simply grow more trees. This has led policymakers to encourage its use. Metals, howev- er, are non-renewable. You can’t simply pop a seed in the ground and grow more aluminium ore. However, to then lump metals in
34 | Sustainable Business | June 2011 s European and other CAN DO
with environmentally unfriendly materials makes no sense, as met- als can be recycled indefinitely without deterioration of qual- ity, meaning they are ‘permanent’ rather than ‘renewable’.
Linde says: “Our ambition is to introduce this concept every- where in policy-making, to have the understanding that perma- nent materials have value in the packaging chain. When you recy- cle, if you have a material from the biosystem, gradually the material degrades. Metal can be resmelted an infinite number of times with- out losing quality.”
BCME is also focused on recy- cling. “Metals are materials that are very suitable for recycling. But another area of misunder- standing is that when metals are recycled they do not necessarily go back into cans, that metal can be used for all kinds of things – for window frames, for cars, for aeroplanes, it doesn’t necessarily become a can again,” says Linde. Rick Hindley, execu- tive director of
tive director of the UK’s Alupro (the Aluminium Packaging R ec yc lin g Organisation), says: “Currently UK policy devel- opment is all about measuring
the
sustainability, and at the moment it’s not great for us, because of the focus on recycled content which for metals is something we’re just not in favour of at all, it just does nothing for us. “So we have one battle to
encourage high recycling rates, but if we can now push it fur- ther and convince policymak- ers
of the importance of
permanent material status it’ll be in our favour.
“Metals as a permanent materi- al will never go way, but we need to make sure we recycle them. It’s a different issue to comparing materials like plastics, where we know the oil’s running out, and it will get more expensive. We have got the resource, we just have to make sure that we keep it in th
it in the recycling loop.
the
“So our priority has got to be to increase recycling levels across Europe. UK recycling rates are about 55%, but until recently the recycling of household packaging hasn’t been prioritised as it has been in other countries, so our aspiration in the UK is a commit- ment to government to increase the recycling rate for aluminium packaging to 65% by 2020. “To do that we’ll need a can recycling rate of 80%, and we’re driving for 75-80% in the UK by 2020, fits
which in with the ambition of
BCME and the Metals Packaging Europe in terms of can recycling rates across the continent.”
Hindley says the message on carbon emissions is a positive one for aluminium. “For every tonne of aluminium you recycle you save close to ten tonnes of CO2, and it’s infinitely recyclable,” he says.
“And as well as sav- ing carbon you’re also saving energy. By recy- cling aluminium you save 95% of the energy used in primary pro- duction. There couldn’t be a better example of a material that through recycling brings huge carbon and energy savings.”
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