Recovery rate growth lies in metals from landfills

With South Africa already boasting a recovery rate of about 72% for used beverage cans, metals packaging industry body MetPac-SA believes that further potential lies in diverting other metal packaging such as aluminium foil, containers and empty tin cans from landfills. “With regards to aluminium specifically, this can be recycled endlessly back into either the same or other aluminium products. During the recycling process, the aluminium scrap is treated to remove contaminants and is then melted using the relevant technology. The end result is a product that is infinitely recycled without any degradation in metal quality or loss of alloying elements such as magnesium, manganese, silicon, copper and chrome,” says MetPac-SA CEO Delanie Bezuidenhout.