Scrap cash ban ‘threat’ for charity can schemes

Cash for cans recycling schemes are under threat from government plans to ban cash transactions for scrap metal, according to the Aluminium Packaging recycling Organisation (Alupro).

Many charitable organisations and community and youth groups use cash for aluminium cans schemes to trade in used cans for money at any one of 300 registered sites across the country. Alupro estimates that around 300 million aluminium cans are collected through the cash for can systems in the UK each year, generating around 3 million.

However, under plans unveiled by the government in January 2012, it will become a legal requirement to use cashless payments when trading in scrap metal, something that could threaten cash for cans collections, which are typically for very small sums of money (see letsrecycle.com story).

The proposals are being brought in under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, currently under review in the House of Lords.

Exemption

Rick Hindley, executive director of Alupro, believes that a cash ban would most likely see a drop in the amount of aluminium cans collected, as it could remove the financial benefit for smaller organisations and is campaigning for aluminium cans to be exempt from the cash ban.

Speaking to letsrecycle.com, Mr Hindley said: In the early days it was the main collection system for collecting aluminium cans in this country, and we think it still amounts to about 10% of cans that are recycled. A typical transaction would usually be relatively small, likely to be around 4 or 5.

For some larger groups who are collecting more cans a cash ban will not necessarily be a problem, but for small groups doing low value transactions there might be a cost involved in raising a cheque or doing a monetary transfer, and it would no longer worthwhile.

Concerns

Mr Hindley reveals that he has met with government officials to voice his concerns about the possible effect of the cash ban and has called for aluminium cans to be exempt from the law, but is unsure if this will result in a change of stance from ministers.

He said: We have been in discussions with Defra and BIS and recently briefed David Mowat, the MP for Warrington South and he is supporting the exemption. In the seven states in the USA that have a cash ban on scrap metal trading, all have an exemption for aluminium cans.

It is particularly frustrating because in the waste consultation last year aluminium was identified as a priority for recycling but this measure could affect recycling rates. Defra are sympathetic to our concerns, and they have fed this back to the Home Office who are passing the law, but quite whether they are sympathetic we are not sure.