Aluminum recycling facts
Aluminum foil recyclable tricks? How serious is the problem? More than 100 billion aluminum cans are sold in the United States each year, but less than half are recycled. A similar number of aluminum cans in other countries are also incinerated or sent to landfills. That adds up to about 1.5 million tons of wasted aluminum cans worldwide every year. All of those trashed cans have to be replaced with new cans made entirely from virgin materials, which wastes energy and causes extensive environmental damage.
Some Pyrex dishes come with plastic lids for covering up pans of brownies or lasagnas. You can also use leftover containers from cottage cheese, sour cream and other food products for storage. When it comes to choosing between aluminum foil and cling wrap, I always choose aluminum foil because it is easier to reuse when I am ready to put my pan away. Cling wrap is impossible to recycle, so aluminum foil is definitely a better bet if you live somewhere where it can be recycled.
Find a drop-off location for aluminum foil near you using our Recycling Locator. Aluminum is one of the highest-value materials you can recycle, and it can be reprocessed into new aluminum in just 60 days Nearly 75 percent of aluminum produced in the U.S. is still being used; Americans dispose of enough aluminum foil annually to build an entire aircraft fleet. Find extra info at is foil recyclable.
While most recycled aluminum is in the form of cans, aluminum foil is technically recyclable, but there’s a catch: It needs to be clean — that is, free of food residue, as grease or food residue can contaminate the other recyclables during the recycling process. In part because of the issues with contamination, and the reality that most people are unlikely to rinse their aluminum foil before recycling it, some waste haulers will not accept aluminum foil for recycling; the damage soiled aluminum foil does to other recyclables can outweigh the benefit of trying to recycle the aluminum foil.
Aluminum Recycling Saves Energy! Discarded aluminum beverage cans are often recycled right back into new cans. Used beverage containers are the largest component of aluminum scrap. Most of these are recycled back into cans. The automotive industry is the second-largest user of recovered aluminum. According to Steve Larkin, president of the Aluminum Association, recycling old cans into new ones uses 95 percent less energy and produces 95 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than producing new cans entirely from scratch. In fact, the recovered aluminum processed in a typical year saves the energy equivalent of 1.3 billion gallons of gasoline. Find additional information at https://www.ablison.com/how-to-recycle-aluminum-foil-and-is-it-biodegradable/.