Aluminum cans trump glass and plastic bottles in circular economy race, finds IAI study

15 Mar 2022 --- Research commissioned by the International Aluminium Institute (IAI) into the recycling of three beverage container materials – aluminum, glass and plastic (PET) – has suggested that aluminum cans best support a circular economy. 

The study found that aluminum cans have a superior collection rate to glass and plastic bottles, which are more likely to end up in landfills. 

In addition, PET and glass bottles are three times more likely to be lost in the recycling system once collected than aluminum cans.

The research entails the “first comprehensive public study” to analyze the recycling value chain for single-use beverage containers in five key markets.

Marlen Bertram, IAI’s director for Scenarios & Forecasts, tells PackagingInsights: “Aluminum cans outperform PET and glass bottles at all levels of the recycling systems, including collection, in all regions together but also in each region separately.” 

The data shows that today more than 70% of the material used in aluminum cans is recycled into new products – almost double that of glass (34%) and plastic (40%). 

On behalf of the IAI, Eunomia Research and Consulting studied data in five regions: Brazil, China, Europe, Japan and the US. It looked at the end-of-life processing losses for aluminum cans, glass bottles and PET bottles.

The study also looked at the collection, sorting, reprocessing and thermal processing, closed-loop recycling and open-loop recycling.

Regional comparisons
The study found regions with high recycling rates for aluminum cans also have higher recycling rates for PET and glass bottles. Furthermore, glass shows the most diverse recycling rates when comparing each region and outperforms PET in Europe and the US.

Circularity in real figures (Image credit: International Aluminium). When asked why these five countries were selected for study, she says the US and Europe were agreed upon right from the start “as they have the best datasets and are important players in the single use-beverage container industry.”

“Furthermore, we wanted to include countries in Asia and South America to have a good understanding of the performance globally. We also wanted to include different collection systems: cooperatives/pickers, curbside collection and deposit systems.”

Bertram says a major challenge in the study was the varying data quality across regions. “Therefore some informed estimates had to be done,” she notes.

Industry takeaways
Bertram also shares that the high losses of glass bottles in the recycling process were “most surprising” to her. 

“Once collected, 10% of the aluminum can be lost while about one-third of the collected PET and glass bottle is lost. Another takeaway was the closed-loop recycling numbers aluminum (33%), glass (20%), PET (7%),” she continues.

“Also, 32% of the PET bottles and 14% of glass bottles end up in currently non-recycled products. Most of the aluminum is going into infinitely recyclable products.”Mapping losses from first to second life (Image credit: International Aluminium).

Regarding possible policy initiatives, Bertram says the aluminum industry has been pro-actively advocating for deposit return systems to ensure “high recycling rates and good quality [recyclate].”

Transparency in circularity
The main goal of this study was to increase transparency in the circularity discussion, says Bertram.

“We wanted to understand the real recycling rates for all three containers based on the same definitions, meaning from the product used to the recycled product, know where the losses occur for each material during recycling operations, and identify what products the material is recycled back into.”

“The data shows that all three materials have more to do to reach their full circularity potential. But for this to happen we need transparent data,” she concludes.

Aluminum cans remain a popular packaging choice for brands. Danone’s evian recently launched a sparkling water in aluminum cans as well as its more familiar PET bottles.

Also, in the personal care sector, aluminum containers are becoming increasingly popular for refill models. 

By Natalie Schwertheim