How can I support the recycling, but not the new production of aluminum?

Question

While the initial production of aluminum is a waste-intensive, energy-intensive process that has negative environmental and social impact through deforestation and contamination of waterways, aluminum has an incredibly high recycling rate (e.g. 98.2% in Brazil). Furthermore, it can be recycled with only a fraction of the energy input of the initial production (5%).

For this reason, I am wondering how I can support the recycling and reuse of aluminum, while not supporting its continued new production. Are there certain products or packaging materials I should avoid buying because they cannot be recycled or because they cannot be made from recycled aluminum?

Answer 1

I'm not going to answer the support the recycling part of your question, but the avoid new production part.

One stream of aluminium goes in to the coating of plastic for packaging food (coffee, crisps, etc). Although this layer is extremely thin (0.0055-0.1 mm) the total amounts are large. Recycling this metalized plastic (metalized film) is doable but complicated, and therefore not often done.
That leaves landfills or burning to get rid of the material.

When burning this stuff, the aluminium ends up in the incinerator bottom ash. Non ferrous metals in the ashes can make up 0.5-3.0%, of which 55-70% is aluminium^*. Here again, the metals can be extracted, but this paper mentions that in 2006 in Europe an estimated 2.3% of metallic Al was left unrecycled.

The same process goes for Tetrapaks (Laminated aluminium with cardboard).

There exist separate Tetrapak recycling processes, but I've never heard of metalized film recycling.

So trying to avoid both forms of packaging is a good choice, because you reduce the amount of primary Al that will only sparsely be recycled.
E.g. ground coffee is also available packaged in clear plastic plus a paper wrapper. You can immediately separate those yourself and 'feed' them into separate recycling streams.

^{* Note that these numbers is not just from metalized film, but also from aerosol and drinking cans.
I was unable to find separate numbers for films and cans in the time I spent on this.}

Answer 2

You (probably) cannot do it on demand side.

The reason this is impossible is that 99% of aluminum users don't care if their aluminum comes from recycled sources.

Let's say there's need for 100 units of aluminum, out of which 50 units are new, and 50 units are recycled.

Now, you introduce one unit of aluminum consumption, with the requirement that it comes from recycled sources. Guess what? Now there are 101 units of aluminum, out of which 51 units are new and 50 units are recycled. Your purchase of recycled aluminum increased its price, making somebody else switch to new aluminum.

You can (perhaps) do it on supply side.

Simply said: purchase shares of an aluminum recycling business. Then you know you own a part of the aluminum recycling operation.

This, however, very probably makes someone sell the shares in aluminum recycling business to you, but you at least now know you own (part of) the recycling business. So it's your recycled aluminum, not somebody else's recycled aluminum. And, you are more immune to price changes of recycled aluminum, although your business is still affected by the price of aluminum waste.

A similar argument is true of many other things:

• To sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, you should own a carbon sink (a forest).
• To use clean electrical energy, you should own hydropower and wind power.

Answer 3

You can advocate for a carbon tax. When fossil fuel energy costs more, recycling is more economically valuable. Cheap power means easier to mine new aluminum. We really need a carbon tax for many reasons. They used to make a zillion tons of aluminum in the United States Pacific Northwest with dirt-cheap hydro power. But when electricity got expensive in California, they sold them the electricity and recycled aluminum.

Answer 4

I think the answers have been supplied here although perhaps not made specific enough. Cans are usually fully recycled. But aluminium used in conjunction with other things is much more difficult to recycle and a large quantity is being thrown away. By not buying plastic you can avoid these mixed materials. Glass is almost always best although, as pointed out aluminium does not require so much heat when recycled. However glass can be reused a few times as it is, without re-melting it, and aluminium can not.