GEL Recycling upgrades capture equipment to reach 3.5 million cans recycled at Florida plant

Grant has installed additional new can capture equipment to improve its previous mis-sorting that will result in 3.5 million more aluminum beverage cans being recycled per year.

Ardagh Metal Packaging and Crown Holdings have approved a new grant that will see GEL Recycling install new aluminum can capture equipment at its northeast Orlando recycling facility as part of its site upgrade and expansion campaign.

Once at GEL Recycling’s material recovery facility (MRF) in Port Orange, FL, this equipment will result in nearly 3.5 million more beverage cans captured at the facility that were previously mis-sorted. The GEL facility is the third MRF to receive funding from a grant program facilitated by the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI) which is the national trade association for the metal can manufacturing industry and its suppliers in the United States.

The grant program builds on CMI research released last year that found it is critical to capture all used beverage cans (UBCs) that flow through MRFs, which play the vital role of sorting single-stream recyclables. This research concluded that most MRFs in the United States would not be able to operate without UBC revenues, considering that they are consistently the most valuable beverage packaging material in the recycling stream. Capturing more beverage cans means a healthier recycling system.

The grant funds provided to GEL Recycling will be used to purchase an additional metal detector to their optical sorter. The equipment will help prevent UBCs from being mis-sorted in the plastic pile. The facility is a dual-stream MRF that processes 24,000 tons per year primarily from Volusia County on the northeast coast of Florida. It is undergoing a general upgrade and this grant ensures that the MRF will have modern metal detection.

When the nearly 3.5 million additional cans are captured and recycled each year at this MRF, it will generate more than $56,000 in annual benefit and produce enough energy savings to power nearly 1.4 million homes for one hour. In addition, the carbon dioxide equivalent emissions avoided each year will be the same as those generated from an average passenger vehicle driving 868,000 miles, which is the driving distance from New York to San Francisco 300 times.

“Can manufacturers like Ardagh and Crown ultimately turn billions of used beverage cans into new cans every year, which is why the aluminum beverage can is the textbook example of the circular economy,” says CMI president Robert Budway .

CMI’s president further notes that “the environmental and economic impact of aluminum can recycling is staggering. These grants ensure that millions more aluminum beverage cans complete the circular journey to new cans, which can happen infinitely as the metal is recycled forever.

The first two recipients of the grant program were Independent Texas Recyclers, Houston, TX, and Curbside Management, Ashville, NC. The equipment installed from the first two grants will result in the capture and recycling of more than 36 million aluminum cans each year that would otherwise likely have been improperly sorted and landfilled. Together, the first three grants have catalyzed the installation of additional can capture equipment that will result in nearly 40 million aluminum cans recycled annually. Additional grantees as part of this pilot phase of the can capture grant program will be announced later this year.

This grant program is the latest industry-funded effort by the aluminum beverage can industry to leverage its industry-leading recycling rates and recycled content. The grant program will encourage additional examples of MRFs that have successfully invested in can capture equipment, providing case studies to encourage more MRFs to invest in aluminum can capture equipment and, in turn, secure the revenue and environmental benefits of increased aluminum can recycling.