What happens to your can
Getting your empty drink cans recycled and back on the shelf involves five different stages.
Stage 1: Recycling
Steel and aluminium cans are separated by the collection company, usually by using a magnet, and baled ready for despatch to the relevant recycling plant.
Stage 2: Reprocessing
At the steel plant: Bales of steel cans are put into a furnace with other recyclable steel. Molten iron is added and oxygen is blasted into the furnace, which heats up to around 1700°C. The molten steel is cast into slabs.
At the aluminium recycling plant: The cans are shredded and hot air is blown through the shreds to remove the printed decoration. The clean shreds are melted in a furnace at 750°C. The molten aluminium is poured into moulds and cooled using a curtain of water to form ingots. Each weighs 27 tonnes and contains 1.5million recycled drinks cans.
The ingots of recycled metal are indistinguishable from metal made from raw materials. From the recycling plant they are sent to rolling mills where they are rolled into thin sheet.
Stage 3: Can Making
The rolled metal arrives at the can-making factory as a coil, which is lubricated before being put into a cupping press. Thousands of shallow metal cups are then cut out and forced through a series of rings to until they form the recognisable can shape. Next, the cans are sprayed with lacquer, forming the base coat for the decoration and to prevent the contents reacting with the metal. Once the decoration has been applied, the cans are oven dried and passed through a machine which prepares them to take the can end.
Stage 4: Filling
Before the contents go in, the cans are first cleaned with high-pressure air and water. The air is then removed and each can is filled with carbon dioxide (CO2). Finally, the liquid is added, the can end attached and mechanically sealed. Around 2,000 cans are filled and sealed every single minute. The cans are then packed and made ready for dispatch.
Stage 5: Selling
Closing the loop, the cans are now delivered to the retailer and put back on the shelves, or into vending machines.
Further information:
Click here to find out more about recycling steel in more detail
Click here to find out more about recycling aluminium in more detail
