The comments came as the UK's largest recycler of aluminium packaging, Novelis, today (January 11) increased the price it pays for aluminium cans for the second time in a week, from £600 a tonne to £700 a tonne for loose cans and from £650 a tonne to £750 a tonne for baled or densified cans.
A consultation on new packaging targets for the period 2011 to 2020 is expected in the next few months (see letsrecycle.com story), and key figures in the sector told letsrecycle.com that they were expecting them to be “significantly” higher than the 40% the UK has to meet this year.
Diana Caldwell, marketing and communications manager for the aluminium sector's trade body Alupro, said the expectation was that the targets would “quite stiff”, but claimed that the organisation was “preparing ourselves” for the new goals.
In particular, she pointed towards Alupro's campaign's aiming to increase the number of councils collecting aerosols and foil and its away-from-home can recycling scheme, Every Can Counts, as proof of this.
Her sentiments were echoed by Andy Doran, UK recycling manager for Novelis, who told letsrecycle.com: “I think the targets will be very challenging for the industry and we want to make sure the levels are right for full aluminium supply chain.”
He noted that key points of concern for Novelis were “who's paying for infrastructure, is the quality right and can we collect it”.
“As an operator that has invested heavily in can-to-can recycling, the targets going up is something we're factoring into our business plans,” he added.
Concerns have already been raised by the government's Advisory Committee on Packaging that any increase in targets need to take into account the difficulties faced in recycling aluminium packaging other than cans, such as laminates.
And, Ms Caldwell stressed that other issues needed to be taken into consideration, including “that it only arises in the domestic waste stream and has a high volume but low weight”.
Price
Today (January 11) saw Novelis increase the price it pays for aluminium cans by the second time in just seven days, with the £100 a tonne increase added to the £50 a tonne increase made a week ago (January 4) to bring the price per tonne to £700 for loose cans and £750 for baled or densified.
One metal recycling expert said he believed the two price increases in quick succession reflected the fact that the company had failed to keep up with market prices with the first increase.
But, he also noted that the fact that large amounts of recycling had not been collected from the kerbside since Christmas due to the wintry weather conditions meant the chances of collectors being able to collect and sell cans to Novelis last week were reduced anyway.
Mr Doran explained that the price increase was a reaction to the sustained strong price for aluminium on the London Metal Exchange, adding “we have a strong demand for high quality UK aluminium cans for our recycling plant”.
He said it was the company's “ambition” to increase both the volume and percentage of material that it sources from the UK this year and cited the price increases as evidence of this.
With only 80,000 aluminium cans sold in the UK each year, and the Latchford plant's capacity at 130,000 tonnes-a-year, Novelis currently sources the majority of cans for the facility from mainland Europe.
Mr Doran said that Novelis was willing to talk to any potential supplier, but noted that the company was not in the market for lower quality material, explaining that “heavily commingled material will always be a challenge for us”.
Novelis ran the Latchford works at full capacity last year and anticipates the same situation this year, and Mr Doran revealed that it had been implementing a “lean manufacturing programme”, to increase the output capacity of the plant by increasing its efficiency.
Away-from-home
In particular, she said that “a couple of other high street names”, which she could not name, were signing up to the scheme, following in the footsteps of ASDA who began a trial in back-of-store areas in July 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story) and have since rolled it out nationwide.
She also highlighted the campaign's first move into on-the-go can recycling, where six can crushers were installed on Bournemouth beach.
“We weren't expecting to roll it out into public areas so early, but we did Bournemouth,” Ms Caldwell explained, noting that there had been no vandalism to the crushers, and that there were now plans to launch further trials outdoors over the next 12 months, with a couple of South Wales beaches “in our sights”.
And, she added that they were also in talks with the operators of shopping centres and looking at how the campaign could work at music festivals and other outdoor events.
Ms Caldwell said that the campaign has an initial budget of £500,000 for the first two years of its operations, adding that one partner, the Beverage Can Makers Europe, had signed up to support the initiative for a further 12 months.
Aerosols and foil
In terms of the initiative Alupro launched in September 2009 to increase local authority collection of clean foil and empty aerosols (see letsrecycle.com story), Ms Caldwell said it had been in touch with most of the councils that were “in its sights”, with meetings held since last October including a group of local authorities in West Sussex.
“People have been very enthusiastic”, she explained, adding that the feeling from the partners involved in the initiative was that none of the issues highlighted as potential barriers were “insurmountable”.
In particular, she cited research published by the Waste and Resources Action Programme in October 2009, which she said showed adding the materials to collections “wasn't a very costly exercise” (see letsrecycle.com story).
Benefits
The benefits of collecting aluminium cans, foil and aerosols were highlighted by Mike Trim, head of cleansing services at Exeter city council, who pointed towards both the value of the material and the importance of improving the public's perception of a recycling service by collecting as many materials as possible.
“It only makes a 5% difference on the recycling rate but it's been fetching up to £1,000 a tonne,” he explained, noting that, even with the current value at around £600 a tonne, an income of around £45,000 meant it was “worth it just for that” because “that would pay for three members of staff on a picking line”, with the £45 per tonne for a recycling credit adding to that.
And, in terms of the public perception, he said: “it's the perception the public has that they can recycle everything in Exeter, it encourages people to recycle more.”
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