Aluminium can recycling boost for North East

Funded by producer responsibility revenue from packaging companies, the new equipment has been provided to Ward Recycling, based in Middlesborough.

Kathryn Whittaker of Novelis and Barry Dean of Abitibi-Consolidated Recycling Europe hope to see can collections surge in the North East

Ward Recycling is the contractor of Abitibi-Consolidated Recycling Europe, which works with Novelis Recycling as part of a group of recycling companies called the End User Consortium.

Ward runs three kerbside recycling schemes in the North East of England, collecting material from about 110,000 households in Hartlepool, Middlesborough and Redcar & Cleveland. Cans collected for recycling are sent to the Novelis regional aggregation centre at South Shields before going on to the Novelis can recycling plant in Warrington.

A marked increase has been seen in the volumes of aluminium cans being collected through the councils' schemes over the past 18 months, the company said, so the new equipment should enable a more streamlined sorting process, with less contamination.

Abitibi-Consolidated Recycling Europe scheme supervisor Barry Dean said: “The new equipment is already helping us immensely. The sorting line will ensure that the growing volume of aluminium cans we are collecting are efficiently extracted, are not contaminated and meet the Novelis quality specifications.”

PRNs
The investment in can processing equipment comes through the packaging waste recovery note (PRN) system, where producers of packaging must buy PRNs from accredited reprocessors like Novelis to help expand the UK's recycling infrastructure.

The UK is particularly in need of more aluminium can recycling to reach national recycling targets each year, and ultimately European recycling targets in 2008. Most of the additional collections needed will be from households and the “away from home” market – workplaces, transport hubs and on streets.

Novelis business development executive Kathryn Whittaker said: “Novelis Recycling is dedicated to maximising recovery of valuable aluminium packaging from kerbside schemes. This support is an example of our ongoing investment in the infrastructure which also includes marketing support programmes and on-going advice and guidance provided by our field-based team.”