The new Tennessee operations can reclamation facility includes a new crusher and delacquering furnace and supporting building enclosures, utilities and environmental systems.
The company claimed that these improvements will help increase capacity using environmental and fuel-efficient technology and support future flexibility to process other scrap types.
This enhanced recycling capacity is in line with Alcoa’s commitment to increase recycling rates in North America to 75% by 2015, the company said.
Klaus Kleinfeld, president and CEO of Alcoa, said: “The aluminum can is the world’s most efficient package, largely because it can be recycled infinitely.
“In the US alone, more than 46 billion cans were put into landfills last year. If we could instead recycle about half of those lost cans, we could achieve our goal of a 75% recycling rate and save the emissions of two coal-fired power plants.”
