Environmental organisation Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) has cautioned the German can manufacturer association Forum Getränkedose for making what it says are inaccurate claims about recycling processes.
A recent study by DUH found that consumers had been led to believe that cans formed part of an 'infinite recycling circle', which was found not to be the case, and Forum Getränkedose has been urged to refrain from continuing to promote this message.
False Statements
DUH says that steel and aluminium from beverage cans cannot be recycled an infinite number of times without material loss. The recycling of beverage cans generally leads to metal losses of up to 10% per recycling process.
“In the past months, can manufacturers have tried to improve their ecological image with false advertisement slogans and alleged infinite recycling of steel and aluminium,” said DUH federal chairman Jürgen Resch.
Material Loss
Advertising slogans such as 'No matter how many times metals are being recycled, not a single gram of this valuable resource is lost' and “Beverage cans can be used for every possible purpose” were found to be inaccurate.
“Because material is lost with every recycling process, the amount of regained secondary materials is reduced. In addition, [cans] cannot be used for 'every purpose', because of alloy components that make the metal impossible to be used in high-quality products,” Resch added.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Larissa Zimmer. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
