Weekly Friday Personal Post: The aerosol recycling white paper was published yesterday! My organization, Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), and the Household & Commercial Products Association (HCPA), published the paper. It provides the basics around aerosol can recycling, the results of the initial work of the Aerosol Recycling Initiative (Initiative), and the activities CMI and HCPA plan to undertake to make progress toward the Initiative's 2030 goals.
CMI and HCPA launched the Aerosol Recycling Initiative in May 2022. The Initiative has two 2030 goals:
--Reach at least an 85 percent recycling access rate for aerosol cans in the U.S. market
--Label at least 90 percent of aerosol cans as recyclable with messaging about how to properly recycle these products
The purposes of the Initiative are to help clarify misunderstandings around aerosol can recycling and to enhance the aerosol can’s recycling story through making progress toward the two 2030 goals.
Recycling aerosol cans is important. There are 4 billion aerosol containers, made from almost 300,000 tons of steel or aluminum, sold in the United States each year. Modeling conducted under this Initiative found that a 50 percent recycling rate of aerosol cans would deliver the energy use of nearly 48,000 U.S. homes per year. Drilling down to a single aerosol can, recycling it saves enough energy to charge 13 smartphones.
Unfortunately, there are misconceptions around aerosol can recycling. A U.S. consumer survey also conducted as part of the Initiative's foundational work found, among other things, that only 44% of people think that an aerosol can is recyclable and 27% of people buy aerosol cans and have access to a recycling program that accepts aerosol cans but "never" recycles them.
The white paper details how this Initiative will work to overcome these misconceptions and make progress toward the 2030 goals. Currently, aerosol cans have just above a 60% access rate (percent of people that have access to a recycling program that accepts aerosols). While this will be difficult to increase, the good news is that aerosol cans can be sorted effectively with typical equipment at material recovery facilities (magnet for steel and eddy currents for aluminum). The baseline on the labeling goal is 29%. It's an even steeper gap to fill, but the aerosol industry has control over what is on the label.
I hope you'll read the report, empty and then recycle your aerosol cans, and collaborate with us to make progress on this Initiative's two important 2030 goals! See the link in the comments to the Initiative's website where you can read the white paper and download/use all the graphics within it.
#aerosol #recycling #sustainability