Collection

Visit the Setting up a Recycling Centre section of this web site for more information.

Alcoa Australia Rolled Products manages a network of recycling centres that pay cash for used aluminium beverage cans. Cash for Cans community centres are in strategic locations in metropolitan and rural areas. They pay members of the community for used aluminium beverage cans delivered to the centre. These community centres are operated by local community groups such as Lions, Rotary, scouts, sport groups and local schools. The cans are kept in a cage, which can hold approximately one tonne of aluminium cans. When the cage is full the community centre operators sell the collected cans to a central aggregation centre.

At the aggregation centre PET and other plastics are removed by hand and steel food cans are separated out magnetically. The sorted cans are then crushed and baled into blocks weighing between 7 and 15 kilograms each.

Apart from the cash returns to the community, significant employment is generated through the handling, transport, processing and remelting of thousands of tonnes of recycled aluminium beverage cans.

Alcoa Australia Rolled Products also runs special community activities in conjunction with organisations such as Keep Australia Beautiful. For example, in the Northern Territory Alcoa Australia Rolled Products and the Keep Australia Beautiful Council are working with the local Aboriginal groups to ensure aluminium beverage cans are recycled and do not become a litter problem in remote areas and within the National Park areas like Kakadu. The money raised from selling the used aluminium cans assists the local Aboriginal communities.

The Aluminium Can Group manages annual recycling programs to encourage the recycling of used cans. The latest program is outlined in the "Can News" section of this web site.

For your nearest recycling centre, look up Scrap Metal Merchants in the Yellow Pages.