Aluminum Cans Remain America's Top Recyclable

WORLD WASTES STAFF

Washington D.C. - Coca-Cola currently may be the most popular soft drink in Ameri-ca, but what is the best container?

Aluminum cans appear to be the winner, as the material once again proved to be the United States number one recyclable, with nearly 63 billion cans returned to the industry for re-use.

Of the 100.7 billion aluminum cans produced in 1995, 62.2 percent were recycled, more than any other material, ac-cording to The Alu-minum Association and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries Inc.

The three organizations reported most of the cans were returned through the highly-developed, market-driven collection in-frastructure of the industry, including the thousands of buy-back centers nationwide.

Although the 1995 rate is slightly less than the number of cans recycled in 1994, the demand still remains strong, and the industry is committed to recycling every aluminum can that is returned.

Last year, the in-dustry paid approximately $1.34 billion for used aluminum cans for recycling.

This closed-loop process, saves 95 percent of the energy needed to produce aluminum from ore. In addition, aluminum cans save energy and allow the industry to avoid capital expenditure.

From recycling through reclamation and production, it can take as little as 60 days for an aluminum can to be back in the store and ready for purchase.