The Aluminium Can Recycling Process
Aluminium Can Bales
When your recycling is collected it is taken to a Material Recycling Facility (MRF). At the MRF a ranges of processes are used to sort the different types of recyclable materials from each other.
Contaminants like plastic bags are removed by hand. Fans are used to separate paper from heaver materials. Magnets pick out the steel products. In some advanced MRFs optical (light) beams, combined with compressed air jets, are used to separate plastic and glass. And electrical (or eddie) currents are used to separate the aluminium cans.
All of the separated materials, including the cans, are sorted into piles or bales.
Regardless of where they are collected in Australia all aluminium can bales are sent to a facility in NSW for recycling. This is a melting facility, or smelter. Here they are melted down and turned into aluminium ingots.
These ingots are then heated to 500 degrees Celsius and rolled into sheets of aluminium just 2.5mm thick.
From here they are taken to a can making facility and new aluminium cans are made!
For more information on this process visit The Aluminium Can Group website.
To help you recycle correctly at home, school or work download, print out and display one of our aluminium recycling posters.
- 'Recycle Right ... Aluminium' Poster (191kb pdf file)
- 'Recycle Right ... at Lunch' Poster (181kb pdf file)
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