Cans

Cans are generally made of aluminium or steel, and both can be recycled at Highland Council recycling centres and points and collected where kerbside collections exist ( blue bin or blue box).

Please rinse clean food and drinks cans before recycling to remove any liquid or food debris so that this does not contaminate the recycling process.It will also prevent your local recycling point from becoming dirty and/or smelly.

Crushing cans will save space in the recycling bank - however this is not essential. Highland Council prefer that people do not use can crushers to squash them as they tend to be harder to bale. Carefully place the lids inside the can to prevent injury. Oversize steel cans may be put in the scrap-metal collections at Recycling Centres.

Collected cans are sorted, baled, melted down and recycled into new steel and aluminium products. 

Aluminium cans make up 60% of the drinks cans sold in the UK. They are easy to recognise because they:

  • do NOT stick to a magnet - test the side, not the top;
  • sometimes display the "alu" sign;
  • have a very shiny silver base;
  • are very light in weight;
  • do not go rusty
'Recycling Aluminium saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch. Making one can from new materials takes as much energy as making 20 cans from recycled aluminium.... Recycling steel cans saves 74% of the energy used to produce cans from virgin material' (information from Sort-it)

f you'd like to start your own collection, or donate your valuable aluminium cans and/or foil to a charity or community organisation, check out  the Alupro link. 

 

Relevant Contacts: 
Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro)