Giant can mural to raise awareness about recycling in Chile

The Social Bank of Cans made its presence visible at the Tu huella Fest festival, recently held in Chile, with a giant mural of cans, with the aim of raising awareness of recycling. This initiative is supported by Ball Corporation, the world’s leading aluminum packaging manufacturer. According to the organizers, the environmental benefits of this material are enormous as it is infinitely recyclable.

Driven by Kyklos and Metalum and sponsored by Ball Corporation since 2022, the Social Bank of Cans is an initiative that seeks to build a common socio-environmental purpose among citizens, social organizations, educational establishments, companies and drivers, to promote the recycling of cans. Through the recovery of cans, they mobilize communities with entertaining prizes and incentives, benefiting their social causes and non-profit organizations.

For Julia Figueiredo, sustainability leader for Ball South America, “it is tremendously gratifying to see how this initiative year after year continues to grow, adding new educational establishments and, most importantly, increasing more and more the amount of cans that are recycled to give them a new life in the form of a new can. This is what we at Ball call a real circular economy, encouraging upcycling – when the material that is recycled is transformed into something of equal or greater value than it was before.”

In 2023, more than 20 tons were collected, being the first time that it left Santiago and incorporated the commune of Iquique and the regions of Biobío and La Araucanía, with the addition of the Valparaíso Region. In addition, an alliance was established with the Sustainable Campus Network to encourage the participation of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in this challenge.

About the Social Can Bank
Nearly 70% of all aluminum beverage cans worldwide are recycled, making aluminum the most recycled beverage container on the planet. However, Chile is far from this number, with an estimated 33%. The opportunity behind aluminum can recycling inspired the creation of the Social Bank of Cans in 2020 from a partnership between Kyklos, an environmental culture B company, and Metalum, the leading aluminum recycling company in Chile. In 2022, Ball, a world leader in sustainable aluminum packaging, joins as a promoter in order to amplify the environmental and social impact of the Social Can Bank in educational establishments. Last year, 720 schools in Chile (Santiago and regions) participated and more than 20 thousand kilos of aluminum cans were recovered and converted into resources.