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Aluminium Recycling Services
It’s the 3rd most abundant element on Earth and the most abundant metal. It is particularly difficult to extract from its ore – bauxite – due to its relatively high reactivity and high melting point. Hence it is one of the most energy intensive metals to produce from its raw ore – a reason why production plants are often located close to electricity plants, typically hydro or nuclear. Average energy consumption for Al production is approx. 15 kW hours (kWh) per 1 kg of Aluminium produced. Electricity costs represent between 20-40% of the costs of producing Al. The full process of creating virgin Al stock is responsible for about 1% of global human-induced GHG emissions75% of all the aluminium ever produced is still in use today
13% of all Al use is used for packaging worldwide
160,000 tonnes of aluminium was used in packaging in the UK in 2010
Aluminium recycling
Aluminium is, in theory, 100% recyclable, with hardly any loss in its original qualities.Current recyclate costs are available onwww.letsrecycle.com/prices
Quantifying the benefits
£36,000,000 worth of aluminium is thrown away each year. Aluminium cans can be recycled and ready toreuse in just 6 weeks. The energy saved by recycling 1 aluminium drink can is enough to run a television for three hours.
Recycling one tonne of aluminium saves 9 tonnes of CO2. So Shanks, by recycling 1,283 tonnes of aluminium in 2011, is saving 11,547 tonnes of CO2 each year. This is the equivalent to: the equivalent emissions from driving: 34.5 million miles.
Enough CO2 to fill:
17.8 billion cans of coke
24.5 million wheelie bins
Nearly 1 million builders skips millennium stadiums
Enough electricity is saved (~161 million kWhs6) to power:1,500 UK schools for 1 year
36,000 UK homes powered for 1 year6 billion cups of tea
Annually, in per global capita terms, you can say that each person uses the equivalent of the typical weight of a grown man in aluminium. Hence Shanks recycles the equivalent of 18,750 people’s use of Aluminium each year