Increasing recycling rates for beverage cans and cartons

Slowly but surely, the recycling rates for beverage containers are increasing in the European Union. The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) has released figures for 2018, showing that cartons have reached a 49% recycling rate. While this is only a 1% increase, it still shows that progress is being made. At the same time, the overall recycling rate for aluminium cans has increased by 2.3% from 2016 to 2017, reaching 75.4%.

Aluminium cans, in particular, provide considerable greenhouse gas savings when recycled. Recycling aluminium consumes 95% less energy than producing it, and contributes only 5% of the greenhouse gas. ACE will follow up the increase in drink carton recycling with a new four-month awareness-raising.