The European Commission is currently evaluating packaging recovery targets achieved under the present EU Directive with a view to its review. As a major supplier of packaging material, the aluminium industry is already committed to sustainable packaging management, including source reduction, recycling and energy recovery.

Aluminium industry integral to the solution

Aluminium provides unique, sustainable packaging: aluminium recycling is cost effective, helps reduce energy consumption, raw materials and ultimate disposal.

Aluminium reduces the impact of used packaging. Aluminium is light and packaging volume can be limited to the minimum needed.

Aluminium packaging helps attain recycling targets easily. The aluminium industry has a long tradition of collecting and recycling used aluminium products; the high economic value of used aluminium packaging is an incentive to continuous improvement of recycling: an average of 60% of beverage cans were recycled in 2006 in Europe.

Aluminium industry supports packaging initiative

The aluminium industry strives to prevent waste from used packaging by cleaner technologies and through new designs to reduce the amount of material in used aluminium packaging.

The aluminium industry is working to increase further the recycling of aluminium packaging and final energy recovery and actively contributes to research into new collection and sorting facilities, as well as new recycling and recovery techniques.

Aluminium industry committed to sustainable development

The intrinsic qualities of aluminium ensure it is a preferred material for packaging products in Europe. Aluminium contributes to prevention and source reduction (i.e. prevention of unnecessary waste and environmentally-friendly disposal of necessary waste) as a result of its outstanding strength to weight ratio. The aluminium industry is committed to fostering the sustainability of its packaging products:

The aluminium industry has consistently worked towards the prevention of packaging waste. The industry reduced the amount of aluminium needed for packaging products by optimising their design and improving material technology: for example the thickness required for packaging applications was reduced by approximately 33% over 15 years.

The aluminium industry is deeply involved in aluminium recycling. In addition to its own remelting units, the aluminium industry co-operates with public and private collection and sorting systems which have had considerable success in ensuring the recycling or energy recovery of used aluminium packaging.