Trivium Packaging, the global supplier of infinitely recyclable metal packaging, has committed to funding the UK Aerosol Recycling Initiative launched by Alupro, the aluminium packaging recycling organisation.

Designed to increase awareness and uptake of aerosol recycling across the UK, the initiative follows a three-phase approach educating consumers around best practice, establishing a baseline recycling rate and developing a roadmap for achieving higher rates for aerosol recycling.

The funding will cover a programme of activity until the end of 2024, including feasibility studies, data collection, pilot programmes, as well as stakeholder and consumer engagement. The multi-year project will end once aerosol recycling rates surpass the levels required to hit 2030 targets.

Andrew Davies, R&D specialist prototyping at Trivium Packaging, commented: “We’re proud to have committed to supporting the UK Aerosol Recycling Initiative. The programme is crucial in driving further improvements in recycling and addressing consumer knowledge and the role of government and industry bodies.”

Tom Giddings, executive director at Alupro, added: “We’re really pleased to have the backing of Trivium Packaging. The partnership will help drive the change in the aluminium packaging industry, working towards a more sustainable future and allowing us to take an important step towards the industry goal of exceeding a 50% aerosol recycling rate by 2030.

“The project is just getting underway; we have big plans for the future and we’re excited to be working alongside our partners to aim to maximise the recycling rate of aluminium.”

For more information about the UK Aerosol Recycling Initiative, visit: https://alupro.org.uk/industry/programmes/the-uk-aerosol-recycling-initiative/. For more information about Alupro, visit: www.alupro.org.uk.

ENDS

About Trivium Packaging – Trivium Packaging is a global supplier of infinitely recyclable metal packaging for the world’s leading brands. Trivium has more than 60 locations worldwide, employs close to 7,500 people with sales of $2.8bn.

 

Alupro, the aluminium packaging recycling organisation, has been announced as the latest sponsor of the 2023 Student Starpack Awards. Organised by the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining (IOM3), the competition challenges university students to create innovative packaging solutions to solve problems set by leading brands.

As part of the agreement, Alupro has published a comprehensive brief, tasking applicants with redesigning the packaging of a product within the food and dried beverage market using aluminium. The judging team will be looking for originality, functionality and – most importantly – design for recyclability.

Alongside taking home a £500 cash prize, the winner will also win a VIP personal tour of one of Crown Packaging’s drink can manufacturing plants, in either Leicestershire or Carlisle.

Commenting on the announcement, Tom Giddings, executive director of Alupro, said: “We’re pleased to announce that we’ll once again be sponsoring the Student Starpack Awards. It’s an excellent platform to inspire the next generation, challenge convention and embrace creativity, while also showcasing why aluminium is the perfect packaging material.

Our 2023 brief aims to highlight the widespread application of aluminium as an infinitely recyclable food packaging material, while also making entrants think closely about how to introduce more sustainable materials into their designs and reducing their reliance on secondary packaging.”

Kate Harrison, director of operations and professional development at the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining, added: “We are extremely grateful for Alupro’s continued sponsorship of The Starpack Student Awards as it enables this inspirational awards programme to continue to inspire tomorrow’s packaging designers.”

The Student Starpack Awards, established in 1964, aim to identify, reward and support up-and-coming packaging designers and their tutors, encouraging the future adoption of innovative new ideas to the UK’s ever-growing packaging industry.

For more information about IOM3 or the Starpack awards, visit www.iom3.org or www.iom3.org/starpack.

ENDS

 

Tom Giddings, executive director of Alupro – the aluminium packaging recycling organisation, discusses the company’s continued growth, the positive impacts achieved through its consumer engagement programmes and how its latest campaigns are helping to change national recycling behaviours.

In 2021, the UK’s aluminium packaging recycling rate reached its highest level on record (66%). Statistics released by the Environment Agency revealed that more than 156,000 tonnes of aluminium packaging were collected for recycling (a 3% rise year-on-year), including 82% of beverage cans.

Despite a growing domestic market, aluminium packaging collected through kerbside, bring and on-the-go systems increased by 5% (112,210), while tonnage recovered from incinerator bottom ash grew by 2% (41,941). More than 88% of this total volume was recycled within the UK and EU, meaning just 12% was exported for reprocessing and consumption further afield.

While it’s pleasing to report yet another record-breaking year for aluminium packaging recycling, the data tells us so much more than just identifying an upward national trend. Indeed, while 2020 volumes were high due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting national lockdowns and mandatory working from home guidance, even greater collection figures in 2021 shows that positive behaviours have remained – a significant achievement for the aluminium packaging supply chain and one that will help to drive us forward towards a more circular future.

At Alupro, we’re proud to represent the UK’s aluminium packaging industry, working to fulfil its obligation to meet, and exceed, recycling targets. We do this by collaborating with local authorities, the waste management industry and the wider metal packaging sector to develop and stimulate the UK’s collection infrastructure. We also manage and run consumer information and education campaigns to encourage participation in recycling schemes – MetalMatters and Every Can Counts.
For us, increasing national recycling rates suggest that the supply chain’s collaborative approach to education, action and change is paying off. What’s more, it gives us confidence that positive consumer behaviours (when it comes to aluminium packaging recycling) are here to stay – a long-term transformation, not simply a short-term data trend.

But while progress is continuing to build, our mission remains clear – to achieve a 100% recycling rate for aluminium packaging in the UK. At 66%, we’re making progress, but there is still a vast amount of ground left to cover.

Greater education, better awareness and more engagement are all key parts of the jigsaw. As such, we’re continuing to develop our team, investing in our education programmes and growing our membership base to expand our influence, drive positive behaviours and continue to inspire increasing aluminium packaging recycling rates.

Growing the team, expanding our influence

Earlier this year, we announced the appointment of Martin Hyde as sustainability and public affairs manager. Joining Alupro from producer compliance scheme Comply Direct Ltd, Martin has significant experience in sustainability, legislation and environmental policy.

Having delivered consultancy on packaging, waste electricals, recycling, batteries, carbon, ESG and net-zero to a diverse member portfolio, Martin is an expert in the circular economy and has an intricate understanding of policy changes such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), Deposit Return Schemes (DRS) and the UK Plastic Tax.

Further bolstering our technical prowess and government engagement capability, Martin’s appointment has already made an immediate and positive impact. What’s more, it has enabled me to transition from my previous role of interim general manager (and acting sustainability and public affairs manager) to my new position of executive director.

Here, my priority will be to lead the Alupro team and act as the independent voice of the industry on issues of government policy and legislative development. What’s more, a key focus of the role will be to share our collective circular economy expertise and work to further stimulate the UK’s collection infrastructure, as well as inspiring collaboration across value chains and sectors to tackle recycling challenges head-on.

When it comes to supporting our education campaigns, we recently appointed Phoebe Kelly to the team as programme assistant. Joining the business following the completion of her Masters degree at the University of Birmingham, Phoebe brings experience in content creation, marketing and events management.

From content creation and social media management to stakeholder engagement and event support, Phoebe will be involved in a number of different initiatives to drive aluminium recycling rates across the UK and educate householders about the importance of best practice waste management. Her experience in events will be particularly beneficial for Every Can Counts, especially coming up to festival season and the summer holidays – some of our busiest periods.

New members, new sectors

We’re delighted that Scanmetals has joined our growing membership base. Headquartered in the UK, but with operations across Scandinavia and Germany, the company specialises in recovering non-ferrous metals from incinerator bottom ash generated by Energy-from-Waste (EfW) facilities.

After residual waste has been recovered to generate electricity and heat, the Scanmetals process sees residual incinerator bottom ash (IBA) sorted via state-of-the-art mechanical and sensor-based technology to remove dust and aggregate. Individual fractions of valuable metals are removed and sold to smelters, refineries, ingot makers and foundries across the globe.

With nearly 42,000 tonnes of aluminium recovered from incinerator bottom ash in 2021, representing IBA recovery comprises nearly 29% of all recycled aluminium packaging. Working with Scanmetals to communicate the importance of IBA in the waste management landscape of the future will therefore be hugely important.

Embracing creativity across our programmes

As we move ever-closer towards a 100% recycling rate for aluminium packaging, we appreciate that capturing and collecting the harder to reach fractions will become ever-more important. Aerosols containers are a perfect example. Although 95% of UK councils offer a kerbside aerosol recycling collection, it is estimated that only 46% of aerosols are correctly separated for recycling by consumers. Indeed, aerosols are widely considered one of the UK’s most confusing consumer packaging types, with incorrect disposal commonplace in result.

To tackle the issue, we recently launched a digital engagement campaign to encourage consumers to recycle their empty aerosol cans. ‘The lonely aerosol’ saw social media users targeted with a series of creative digital animations, sharing best practice recycling advice, to represent the diversity of aerosol containers found within the home.

But the onus shouldn’t be placed on homeowners alone. Indeed, to inspire a national uplift in aerosol recycling rates, we need government support to help improve consumer education when it comes to best practice recycling. Furthermore, substantial long-term investment into collection infrastructure is essential to ensure used aerosol cans become an intrinsic part of the circular economy.

With this in mind, we’ve been working behind the scenes on a project to calculate the true baseline of aerosol recycling in the UK. After all, with recycling system investment aligned to reported recycling rates, ensuring the accuracy of this measurement is hugely important.

Away from aerosols, other creative campaigns have included co-creating a series of podcasts for KS2 and KS3 pupils in collaboration with FunKids; as well as launching Bin-Fluencers – a programme inspiring schoolchildren to create online videos to raise awareness of aluminium packaging recycling.

Education needs to be engaging, fun, different and interesting to make a real difference. It needs to span multiple geographies and multiple demographics. Our creative campaigns, alongside the continuous work of our MetalMatters and Every Can Counts programmes, intends to keep aluminium packaging recycling front-of-mind.

Accelerating towards a circular future

As we move ever-closer towards the end of the year, we hope to see record aluminium packaging recycling rates continuing, reflecting the positive trends of 2021. More importantly still, we hope to see more material than ever collected through kerbside, bring and on-the-go systems to maximise the potential for closed-loop recycling.

With higher, more ambitious national targets, we’re pleased to be moving ever-closer towards a 100% recycling rate for aluminium packaging. As we do so, communication will prove ever-more pivotal in maintaining consumer engagement and maximising positive recycling behaviours.

At Alupro, we’re developing, investing and growing to support a continued increase in recycling rates – not just for today, but for the future.

ENDS

 

Children from The Bawburgh School in Norfolk were treated to an interactive aluminium recycling workshop, after one Year 5 pupil won a national competition organised by Fun Kids Radio and Alupro.

10-year-old Benjamin was awarded first place, from a significant amount of entrants across the UK, after correctly identifying that more than 75% of aluminium ever made is still in use today. The prize secured Benjamin and his classmates a workshop with social enterprise Casting Innovations, who provided the unique opportunity to watch the aluminium recycling process first-hand, with metal melted at temperatures of more than 1000ºC in a controlled and safe environment at their school.

With the class watching on, the Casting Innovations team melted down used drink cans collected by pupils and cast them into moulds made by the pupils earlier in the workshop. Each pupil took home a recycled keyring as a memento of the day and to remind them about the importance of recycling, sustainability and the infinite circularity of aluminium packaging.

Tom Giddings, executive director of Alupro, commented: “Our collaboration with Fun Kids Radio came as part of a wider campaign to get primary and secondary school pupils excited about recycling. We recorded a series of ten webinars exploring the properties of aluminium, which are each available to download for free from the Fun Kids website.

“To celebrate the launch, we also hosted a competition, which attracted thousands of entries from school children nationwide. We were so impressed with the number of entries received and offer our congratulations to Benjamin on winning the top prize.”

For more information about the podcast series, or to download the ten episodes, visit www.funkidslive.com.