Super Collectors, such as ‘Pooraka Recycling Centre’, pay 10c on all aluminium cans that qualify for the South Australian governments container deposit refund scheme.
Under SA container deposit legislation, cans marked with either:
“10c refund at collection depots when sold in SA” or
“10c refund at SA/NT collection depots in State/Territory of purchase”, can be taken to a recycling centre to collect 10 cents per can.
Being one of the most popular can recycling centres Adelaide residents visit, ‘Pooraka Bottle & Can Depot’ handles the collecting and sorting of cans, sending them off to be recycled into other aluminium products, predominantly more beverage cans.
Aluminium Can Recycling Process
- Adelaide residents take their beverage cans made from aluminium to Pooraka Recycling Centre and receive 10c per can that’s marked with “10c refund at collection depots when sold in SA”, or paid by weight on other steel cans.
- Aluminium cans are sorted and sent off to a treatment plant.
- They’re washed then melted down to molten aluminium at a temperature of 500°C to remove any ink on the cans.
- The molten aluminium is poured to create ingots, each ingot is made up of about 1.6 million aluminium drink cans.
- The ingots are then transported to a mill that rolls out the ingot forming a 2.5mm thick sheet.
- Aluminium can manufacturers buy the recycled aluminium sheets to make more cans. It takes about 6 weeks from when cans are taken to Pooraka Recycling Centre to end up on the shop shelves again as a new drink for sale.
Why Recycle Aluminium Cans?
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Firstly, it’s an easy way to make some money. Start collecting cans by placing them in a container or bin ready to take to Pooraka Bottle and Can Depot for payment.
- Secondly, you can contribute to a cleaner environment by reducing litter at parks and beaches and by reducing greenhouse gas emissions created when making cans from non recycled aluminium.
- Lastly, by having more recycled aluminium around to use, less mining is required for it, leaving more for future generations.
Aluminium Can Recycling Facts
Here is a list of interesting aluminium can facts and figures.
- Cans made from recycled aluminium uses 95% less energy than making them from scratch; a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
- Just one aluminium can recycled saves enough energy to power a television for 3 hours.
- With advances in manufacturing processes, making aluminium cans requires less raw material than it used to 30 years ago. Each can is now lighter an thinner, but as strong as a result.
- When discovered by Sir Humphry Davy in 1807, he named the element ‘aluminum’. This spelling is used in America, but Australian’s have changed it to ‘aluminium’.
- Aluminium is the most common metal found in the Earth’s crust, in fact the third most common element after oxygen and silicon.
- About 50% of aluminium cans bought from shops each year in Australia contain soft drink and about 30% contain beer.
Apart from helping the environment, you can make money recycling cans, by taking them to ‘Pooraka Bottle and Can Recycling Centre’.
These cans are treated as metal and therefore we pay you by weight.
Please ensure all cans that contained food have been completely emptied of their contents and washed first before bringing them in to us, in a separate container to the 10c aluminium cans.
