Arpal’s Christmas campaign to recycle also during the holidays

The ARPAL association, which promotes initiatives and activities to encourage and extend the habit of collecting and recycling aluminum containers in Spain, informed on Thursday that it is launching its campaign to raise awareness about the recycling of these containers to coincide with the Christmas holidays.

It explains in a video that at Christmas time aluminum containers are also generated and reminds that depositing them in the yellow container ensures their subsequent recycling. This is the summary of the video that takes place in the news set ‘Alu Talks’, created by ARPAL to keep growing the number of aluminum containers recovered.

The association recalls that during these days of meetings and family gatherings increases the consumption of semi-rigid packaging such as food trays or tubs to prepare Christmas menus. Rigid packaging, such as beverage cans, the containers in which the cream comes, cosmetic jars and cans of canned food.

To these are added flexible packaging, such as yogurt lids, puddings, and even the cover of the caps of wine bottles; flexible aluminum sheets that protect the contents of sweets, chocolates and chocolate bars; gift wrapping and aluminum foil are used as heat preservers for food and as a support for other utensils that are placed in the oven; without forgetting its use in Christmas decorations, such as the rivers of the nativity scenes, which, as recommended by ARPAL, can later be folded to form an aluminum ball to be deposited in the yellow container.

According to data provided by ARPAL, in 2023 Spain recycled 79,957 tons of aluminum packaging through different streams such as sorting plants, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) plants, selective collections outside the home, waste recovery and incinerator slags. This figure represents 52.2% of the total amount of aluminum packaging placed on the market. Almost 50% of the recovered material came from various selective collections, which implies that the population is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of recycling.

Regarding the amount of tons of aluminum packaging placed on the market, it continues to grow, reaching 153,064 tons in 2023. European Directive 2018/852 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishes that 50% of aluminum packaging must be recycled by 2025 and 60% by 2030. “Thanks to the efforts of citizens who every day deposit more aluminum packaging in the yellow container and the optimization of sorting plants, it has already been possible to achieve the target set for 2025 and now ARPAL has focused its efforts on achieving over 60% in 2030,” the association explained in a statement.