Dive summary:
- Can Manufactures Institute and the Institute for Scrap Recycling announced that in 2011, approximately 61 billion out of the 93.6 billion cans produced (65%) were recycled, resulting in the highest rate of recycled aluminum in 14 years.
- Aluminum recycling peaked at 67.9% in 1992 and remained above 60% through the 1990s, in the early 2000s the rates started to decrease, hitting a decade low in 2003 at 50%.
- Using recycled metal rather than producing new cans requires about 95% less energy; the increase of recycling between 2010 and 2011 translates into the energy equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of crude oil.
From the article:
The share of aluminum containers that were recycled in the U.S. in 2011 reached the highest point in 14 years, as can makers sought to reduce costs, a group of trade organizations said Monday.
Recycled aluminum represented a 65.1% share of reported U.S. shipments of aluminum beverage cans last year, the most since 1997, the Aluminum Association, the Can Manufacturers Institute and the Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries said in an email to Dow Jones Newswires. That is up from 58.1% in 2010 and the third-highest rate in industry data beginning in 1972. ...
