Among global leaders in the aluminium industry, Panagiotis Tserolas, sustainability senior manager of Elval, participated in the roundtable discussion on the acceleration of aluminium beverage can circularity at COP28. During the United Nations Climate Change Conference that was held in Dubai in December, industry leaders set a 100 per cent recycling target by 2050. Currently, more than 70 per cent of aluminium beverage cans are recycled into new products, but this figure falls short of making the complete contribution necessary for achieving the 1.5-degree increase target.
As the number of beverage cans is set to increase from 420 billion in 2020 to 630 billion by 2030, data has revealed that recycling all cans globally in 2030 would save 60 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. Panagiotis Tserolas, during the roundtable discussion said: “We should think of global recycling rates as a very robust indirect index of the carbon emissions that we can save for each ton of UBC that does not end up in landfill but returns in the loop”. Highlighting the company’s commitment to the establishment of the framework and policies needed to unleash the circular potential of aluminium can, he added that “there is untapped potential, not only for the can-making industry, but for the whole production and consumption model that the company envisions”, and that “this challenging era demands efforts on our part.”