What happens to my can?

Step 1 - Collection

Unfortunately, you can only drink the contents once, but recycling the can means the metal can be used again and again. The can will be collected by the partner waste management company and taken to the relevant recycling plant.

Step 2 - Reprocessing

Your steel can hits the steel plant and is squashed into a bale. Bales of steel cans are put into a furnace with other recyclable steel. Molten iron is added and oxygen is blasted into the furnace, which heats up to around 1700°C. Your can ends up as molten steel again, which is then cast into slabs.

Alternatively, all the aluminium cans you drink end up at the aluminium plant. Here, your cans are shredded and hot air is blown through the shreds to remove the printed decoration. The clean shreds are melted in a furnace at 750°C. The molten aluminium is set like jelly into huge rectangular moulds, called ingots. Each ingot weighs 27 tonnes and your can becomes one of the 1.5 million recycled drinks cans each contains. The ignots of recycled metal are indistinguishable from metal made from raw materials. These ingots are then flattened into coils and sent to the can making factory.

Step 3 - Can making

Here the recycled metal from your can starts to become a can again. First, specially developed machines cut out the shapes needed to make the cans. Next, the cans are sprayed with lacquer, forming the base coat for the decoration. Once the decoration has been applied, the cans are oven dried.

Step 4 - Filling the liquid

Before the contents go in, the cans are first cleaned with high-pressure air and water. Then the can is filled with a soft drink. Finally, the liquid is added, the can end attached and mechanically sealed. Around 2,000 cans are filled and sealed every single minute.

Step 5 - Ready to drink

Here the recycled metal from your can starts to become a can again. First, specially developed machines cut out the shapes needed to make the cans. Next, the cans are sprayed with lacquer, forming the base coat for the decoration. Once the decoration has been applied, the cans are oven dried.