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Beverage can manufacturers Ardagh Metal Packaging (AMP) and Crown Holdings (Crown) are funding two new grants for can capture equipment at material recovery facilities (MRF), which sort single-stream recycling into materials for sale. These additional cans captured each year are worth around $325,000 and when recycled will result in energy savings equivalent to powering more than 900 U.S. homes for an entire year.
These two grants are in addition to the four that AMP and Crown have previously funded as part of a program in collaboration with The Recycling Partnership. Collectively, the six can capture equipment grants that Ardagh and Crown have funded have catalyzed the installation of equipment that will capture more than 115.5 million aluminum beverage cans each year they are operating. The aggregate cans captured with these six grants are worth more than $1.8 million and when recycled will result in energy savings equivalent to powering more than 5,000 U.S. homes for an entire year.
This grant program with The Recycling Partnership is part of a comprehensive effort with metal can trade association Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) to spur the installation of equipment in MRFs to capture missorted aluminum beverage cans. Based on research from 2020, CMI found up to one in four aluminum beverage cans are missorted at a typical MRF and that without the revenue from UBCs, most MRFs wouldn’t be able to operate without a change in their business model. Along with the research and grants, CMI conducted testing in 2022 at several MRFs proving the number of cans being missorted and the return on investment (ROI) to capture them, followed by a free ROI calculator for MRFs to use. Most recently, CMI announced in September 2023 that it had fully financed a two-year lease of a robot from EverestLabs with funding from AMP and Crown at a California MRF that will capture more than one million aluminum beverage cans per year.
The two MRFs receiving grants are:
• GreenWaste in San Jose, which serves 300,000 households throughout the San Jose area, will use the grant toward a second eddy current separator that will capture undersized aluminum and previously lost items from the MRF’s screening process. It expects to capture each year with this equipment 260 new tons of aluminum (17.6 million aluminum beverage cans).
• RecyclingWorks in Elkhart, Ind., which reaches more than 200,000 households, will use the grant toward a robotic sorter that can be installed in a small area on the residue conveyor. It will reduce by 45 tons (3 million aluminum beverage cans) the amount of aluminum going to landfill.
