It is important to keep recycling aluminum beverage cans due to several economic and environmental

reasons. Only 5% of the energy used in primary aluminum production is needed in recycling aluminum products.
During the last decades, there has been a shift of focus on recycling aluminum beverage cans. Recycling 1 kg of
aluminum beverage cans saves up to 8 kg of bauxite, 4 kg of chemical products and 14 kWh of electricity (International
Aluminium Institute, 2007).

(Insert all RRL on recycling aluminum beverage cans in PH here)

(Insert statistics of recycling aluminum in PH here – if available)

In the United States, recent publications (Dunleavy, 2006; Henry, 2007; Toto, 2006) have shown that there
has been a great effort to increase can recycling. Toto (2007) describes a program developed by Atlanta-based Novelis,
a spin-off of Alcan and a global leader in aluminum rolling and can recycling, it has adopted the Cans for Cash program
to reduce loss of aluminum cans due to landfill. Alcan started the program in 2004 in partnership with the US
Conference of Mayors, a nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. Under the program,
there are four population divisions: division 1, 250,000 and above; division 2, 100,000–249,999; division 3, 50,000–
99,999; division 4, up to 49,000. The program awards $5,000 for recycling to the cities that collect the most cans in
each division. The program awards $5,000 to second largest can collector of each categories for their innovative ideas,
promoting aluminum can recycling. Keep America Beautiful (KAB) joined the Cans for Cash partnership to encourage
community participation in 2006. KAB encourages cities to partner with their local affiliates to promote the recycling
of cans. – pls check if needed mag compare recycling capabilities with other countries

The Swedish aluminum beverage can market reached 0.84 billion cans in 1990. The recycling rate was
83.3%. All collected cans are delacquered in a special pretreatment unit before being remelted together with ‘can/can
stock’ production scrap in a 3000kW channel induction furnace. No virgin metal is added. The resulting high quality
AA3004 material is cast to slabs and rolled to 0.33mm can body stock. The delacquering and remelting processes are
performed in such a way that metal loss and environmental impact are minimised. Above all by continous adjustment
of the combustion conditions in the delacquering unit a very effective destruction of toxic organic compounds is
achieved (Knutsson and Sjoeberg, 1991). – pls check if needed mag compare recycling capabilities with other
countries

The literature shows only a few studies concerning the influence of casting specifications on aluminum can
recycling. (Ten´orio et al., 1995; Verran et al., 2005). Recent studies have investigated and analyzed the effect of melt
treatment and other process parameters on the performance of aluminum recycling.

Majidi et al. (2007) have studied the effect of fluxing temperature on the refining process of molten
aluminum. Their results indicated that optimal fluxing temperature is around 740°C, at which flux would effectively
remove oxides and other contaminants from molten aluminum. Their results also show that refining will not be very
effective in fluxing temperatures below 700°C.

A study conducted by Rabah (2003) proposed a method for updating the current recycling technology by
augmenting the removal of the paint coating, decreasing magnesium loss during melting and improving hydrochloric
acid leaching of the formed slag. Iron present in the leaching solution was removed by oxidation using oxygen gas or
hydrogen peroxide and filtered as goethite for refining purposes. Parameters affecting the extent of recovery and
quality of the products have been investigated. Their results show that at temperatures around 800°C, optimum
recovery efficiency is about 96.6%. Some papers have highlighted the advantages of the using of medium frequency
coreless induction furnaces for recycling aluminum scrap. A major contributory factor has been the high metal
recovery levels, particularly for clean, high surface area scrap, in comparison to other furnace types (Smith, 1994).

In replacement of the traditional fuel-fired reverberatory furnaces of the aluminum industry, Schmidt (1988)
has stated the advantage of the special characteristics of the coreless electric induction melter over the traditional
melters. Taking into account both material and conversion costs, the net cost of molten metal delivered to the die
casting machines has been cut 25–30%, compared to the previous fuel-fired melting. MacIntosh (1983) has also
discussed this subject and he analyzes the advantages of using an induction furnace for secondary aluminum recovery
over the use of the fuel-fired furnaces.

In other works, Smith (1995) describes the development and optimization of electrically based technologies
for metal melting and melt processing. The work relates to both ferrous and non-ferrous foundry sectors and in the
case of aluminum, to their material suppliers, namely the secondary ingot producers. In recent publication Luzgin et
al. (2004) have described the role of induction melting units in processing the secondary raw materials, the application
of electromagnetic fields during smelting and casting of non-ferrous metals and technical characteristic of the melting
induction plants.Recently, Dispinar and Campbell (2007) has presented a study in a secondary alloy ingot producing
plant targeted to investigate the metal quality change in the holding furnace during secondary remelting of aluminum
alloy LM24 (Al–8Si–3Cu–Fe. The investigation was an attempt to understand the effect of: (i) the use of diffusers
(porous plugs integrated into the body of the furnace) and (ii) casting techniques involving different degrees of
turbulence. Casting density and biofilm index were found to be useful parameters to assess metal quality. It was found
that the metal quality was increased significantly, and was maintained high throughout the casting operation when: (i)
diffusers were used and (ii) turbulence was reduced to a minimum. – to be rephrased

Attempts were made in one study to improve the efficiency of recycling and the quality of recycled
aluminum. After recycling of aluminum cans, a preliminary study (Verran et al., 2005) examined the impact
of flux number on recovery. The effects of casting temperature, melting therapy, and flux were investigated.