Aluminium & Tin Cans

Aluminium cans and tin cans are sorted, crushed and baled into ‘bricks’ in preparation for shipment to customers.

Recycled aluminium cans are taken by local scrap metal dealers and exported primarily to Australia for reprocessing. At smeltering plants, the bricks are fed into a furnace where the aluminium melts. It is then cast into small ‘ingots’ or sheets ready for processing into new products. Aluminium can be used over and over, and very often new cans are made. Other products are also produced. One New Zealand company is now making office chairs with the main structure of the chair consisting of recycled aluminium.

Recycling aluminium requires less than 10% of the energy used in making it from raw materials. Air pollution and water pollution are also very low when manufacturing with recycled aluminium.

Recycled tin cans provide a good source of steel scrap (as they are actually tin-coated steel). A steel mill in Auckland takes most of this where it is melted down ready to be recast into such things as construction beams and girders. The tin plate, used as a protective layer in cans to prevent the steel from rusting, is also recovered and made into the likes of reinforcing rod.

Compared to making steel from raw materials, manufacturing recycled steel uses 40% less water, over 50% less energy and can reduce water pollution by up to 75% and air pollution by 85%.