Romanian aluminium beverage can recycling programme launched

The European Aluminum Association (EAA) Packaging Group in cooperation with the Romanian metal packaging recycling company AMEP-Pack (member of Can Pack Group S.A., the leading Polish can manufacturer), with the active support of the Romanian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development has launched its plans for a joint aluminium beverage can recycling initiative in Romania. The first collection activities will start this weekend.

Today, one of the key activities starts in the capital Bucharest in cooperation with REAL, a leading retailer chain in Romania. Romanian consumers can bring their used aluminium beverage cans back to the REAL hypermarket in Bucharest. On the spot they will be informed about the advantages of aluminium beverage can collection and recycling and how they can contribute themselves.  
 
EAA and AMEP are also looking into possibilities for cooperation with URBAN, one of the largest waste management companies active in Romania. URBAN will soon start to collect aluminium beverage cans and other metal packaging in one of the most populated districts of Bucharest. Citizens of district no. 6 already have access to separate waste collection systems promoted by the Romanian Green Dot association EKOROM. Beverage cans can easily be collected and recycled via yellow bins.
 
EAA and AMEP are convinced that Romanian citizens are motivated to take an active part in the collection and recycling of aluminium beverage cans. The environmental awareness among the public is growing and individual collectors are becoming increasingly aware of the high scrap value of used cans. Voluntary incentive based collection systems already exist in countries such as Poland and Hungary and are proving successful. The Polish aluminium beverage can recycling rate reached an impressive 65% last year, well above the minimum targets of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive.
 
With the active support of the Romanian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development EAA and AMEP believe that aluminium beverage can collection and recycling will soon become equally successful in Romania. Under the slogan ‚three times a winner‘ (in Romanian: “de 3 ori câştigător“) both organisations stress that the collection of used aluminium cans helps to protect the environment, contributes to energy savings and secures the recycling of a valuable material resource. By recycling used aluminium cans into new beverage cans or other valuable aluminium products such as bicycles or engine blocks up to 95% energy is saved, resulting into an almost equal saving of CO-2 emissions.
 
Aluminium beverage cans are one of the most collected and recycled beverage packs in Europe and even world-wide. In 2005 the EAA reported an official average recycling rate of 52% for Greater Europe. With non-registered collection activities taken into account today at least 2 out of 3 aluminium beverage cans are collected and recycled.

Contact:
•         Maarten G. Labberton (EAA Packaging Group)
 E-mail: labberton@eaa.be, Phone: +32 2 775 63 19
•         Dragos Doru (AMEP-Pack)
 E-mail: ddoru@canpack.ro, Phone: +40 725 550 783
 

Notes to editors:

About EAA and the EAA Packaging Group
The European Aluminium Association, founded in 1981, represents the European aluminium industry from alumina and primary production to semi-finished and end-use products, through to recycling. About 16% of all aluminium goes into packaging products, such as beverage cans, food and aerosol cans, menu trays, tubes, closures and other foil products such as wrappings and thin and flexible foil applications. 

The EAA Packaging Groups represents the main producers of aluminium can and foil sheet and promotes the use and recycling of aluminium packaging throughout Europe, by working closely together with national packaging and recovery & recycling organisations, customer groups and other key stakeholders such as local authorities, NGO’s and consumer groups. The European aluminium industry directly employs 236.000 people.

About AMEP-Pack
AMEP PACK SA is the daughter company of the Romanian can manufacturer CAN PACK SA, member of the leading Polish packaging manufacturer CAN PACK GROUP. Starting this year AMEP PACK SA has made a significant investment to create the first aluminium can recycling network in Romania. AMEP PACK has two sites for collection, sorting and compacting aluminium cans, one in Bucharest and one in Tecuci. For the next 5 years, in order  to attain the European aluminium recycling target of 55 percent and depending on the market’s evolution, AMEP PACK SA intends to expand the can recycling network by opening work points in another 3-4 Romanian cities.
 
 
Stephen Weller
Communication Manager 
Avenue de Broqueville, 12
BE – 1150 Brussels, Belgium
Phone: +32 2 775 63 45
Fax: +32 2 779 05 31
Email: weller@eaa.be

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