The Employees’ Recycling Program is another aluminum can recycling success story. The program will again make significant contribution for equipment and uniforms for people with disabilities involved in athletic programs and other worthwhile causes throughout Washington State.

In a recent year, the Employee Recycling Program collected 117,000 pounds of aluminum cans. This outstanding effort not only helps people with disabilities, it saves energy and protects our fragile environment.

The aluminum can is a closed loop process: used aluminum cans are often recycled and back on the store shelf in the form of a new beverage can in as little as 90 days. Because aluminum cans are made from only one material, the recycling process is simplified. Used aluminum cans become new aluminum cans creating a closed loop unmatched by most other packaging materials. Closed loop recycling means that once collected for recycling, no aluminum can need ever reach a land fill or be recycled into a product which will not or cannot be recycled again.

Aluminum can recycling also saves energy. The process that turns bauxite, the ore from which aluminum is made, into metal requires electricity -- about 7.5 kilowatt hours of electricity for each pound of metal produced. However, 95 percent of the energy is saved when new metal is made from recycled aluminum instead of raw materials. The energy saved across the US in a single year through recycling could meet the residential electrical needs of a city the size of Seattle, WA for nearly six years.

More than 50% of today’s aluminum cans originate from used beverage cans. The recycling content of aluminum cans will rise with the national recycling rate thanks to the help and support of programs like this one.

The athletes of Washington State and the environment of the Pacific Northwest owe much thanks to all the employees who recycle aluminum cans every day at work.....

Thanks.....