Local Authorities: Aluminium Recycling

Debate between Aphra Brandreth and Tessa Munt

Tuesday 1st September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered aluminium recycling and local authorities.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I am grateful to have secured this debate, as I believe that what I am about to set out is one of the most significant and least understood failures in our country’s local authority waste and recycling policy. It concerns aluminium, the most valuable material in every household recycling bin in Britain.

We should ask ourselves, what happens to the aluminium cans that residents put out for the council to collect? What do councils do with that aluminium? Is it managed in the best possible way? And how does the disposal of aluminium impact the Government’s critical minerals strategy, aluminium recycling targets and circular economy objectives?

For many years, I have collected used aluminium from businesses in my constituency. Once I have collected enough, it goes to our local scrap merchant, and I donate the money to local charities. Recycled aluminium has roughly 10 times the value of mixed plastic waste and several times the value of paper or cardboard. As aluminium can be recycled indefinitely, it is the most valuable material that councils collect from households by a very wide margin.

I knew that a number of councils in my region, including my own council, had an efficient kerbside collection scheme and return much of the collected aluminium’s commodity value to the council’s coffers, but I wondered about the rest of the country. How much aluminium is recycled each year? What happens to it once councils have collected it? Are councils getting a fair income from its commodity value? Is it recycled in the UK or sent abroad? And what, if any, are the Government’s regulations regarding the export of aluminium? Those are some of the questions to which I wanted answers.

Earlier this year, I submitted a freedom of information request to more than 300 councils across the UK. I asked them what happens to the aluminium collected from their residents’ kerbside recycling. While I waited for replies, I did some further research on the subject. I discovered from the House of Commons Library that about £1 billion-worth of scrap aluminium is sold abroad each year by waste management companies. Industry groups told me that manufacturers are spending about £5 billion importing reprocessed aluminium.

According to the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation, which I would like to thank for being here today, we use around 12 billion aluminium cans every year.

[Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)]

The hon. Member is making an important point about the value of the aluminium we throw away. This is not just about drinks cans; blister packs also contain valuable aluminium but are not routinely recycled at the kerbside by many councils. My constituent, Yvonne, has done amazing work in one of our local villages trying to gather together these blister packs for recycling. Does the hon. Member agree that we should be speaking with councils and encouraging them to recycle things like blister packs at the kerbside?

[Tessa Munt]

Yes, of course I agree. The more we can do to recycle everything that we potentially throw away, the better.

Around 60% of the 12 billion aluminium cans used each year are exported for recycling, with only 40% recycled in the UK. I also learned that, although we currently have a high recycling capacity, next year we will have the capacity to recycle every aluminium can used in the UK. By this time next year, there should be no need whatsoever for any council in this country to send its aluminium cans abroad. I shall return to that point.

Environmental groups revealed that every tonne of aluminium recycled in the UK saves 95% of the energy needed to produce primary aluminium. Of equal importance, recycling in the UK avoids the carbon emissions of shipping material to smelters in China, India, the USA, Thailand and Greece. I mention those countries because, according to the manufacturers’ trade body, Make UK, and aluminium industry analysts AL Circle, that is where 84% of our aluminium scrap ends up. Exports of aluminium to the USA are particularly worrying, because they have surged by almost 1,200% from 2,000 tonnes to 24,000 tonnes in just 12 months. Aluminium scrap is exempt from President Trump’s tariffs on primary aluminium, so the waste management companies are profiteering by sending as much scrap aluminium there as they can.

In April, answers to my FOI requests began to arrive. The results were revealing. Far too many councils could not say where their aluminium ended up. Too many have no policy requiring their aluminium to be recycled in the UK and, I have since discovered, too many councils that do have a UK recycling requirement are blissfully unaware that their aluminium is being exported abroad by private waste management companies. The most shocking thing my research revealed, however, was the number of councils that do not know the value of their aluminium waste and the number receiving little or no income from the sale of this valuable commodity. Equally alarming was the number of council leaders who refused to answer my question about income, quoting commercial sensitivity.

I found that those councils that understand the value of their aluminium and manage their recycling well are retaining significant amounts of money each year. However, councils of similar sizes and demographics, sometimes using the very same waste management company, are losing money for reasons that simply make no commercial sense. I will give a few examples: Cambridgeshire county council made about £1.6 million from aluminium recycling last year; West Sussex county council made about £1 million; Surrey county council made £2,000; Warwickshire county council made £500; and Lancashire and Kent county councils made nothing.