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BIA-Brukerstyrt innovasjonsarena

Circular Aluminium Packaging in Norway – Alpakka

Alternative title: Sirkulær aluminiumemballasje i Norge - Alpakka

Awarded: NOK 12.3 mill.

Project Manager:

Project Number:

296276

Project Period:

2019 - 2023

Funding received from:

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Subject Fields:

Alpakka has contributed to more and better recycling of food and drink packaging from aluminium. All stakeholders in the Norwegian value chain, Hydro, Speira, Metallco, Norsk metallgjenvinning, Infinitum, a packaging user Kavli and the research partners SINTEF and NTNU are partners. In Work Package 1 "Collection", literature studies have been carried out to identify the best collection schemes for aluminium packaging globally. Here it was found that Norway differs from most other countries by having co-mingling of metal and glass. Norwegian municipalities have either glass & metal containers ("bring scheme") or waste containers at home ("collection scheme") To answer questions like " How much goes into residual waste versus metal collection?" and " How much food residue is left in the aluminium packaging?" a program for pick analysis in residual waste has been carried out. A large proportion of collected metal is not packaging. Product residues amount to approx. 10% in the aluminium fraction. More metal is collected with the collection scheme, on the other hand, this results in poorer quality. The project has also developed and tested an innovative collection scheme concept "Meny piloten" to increase and improve the collection of metal packaging. Meny's customers are offered pick up of collection bags for used metal packaging. Collected material was then hand-sorted and analysed. The pilot shows that consumers sort both glass and metal, and not packaging as "metal packaging". For aluminum used beverage cans (UBC), a new post sorting solution at Infinitum avoid aluminium to be thought out during sorting out labels etc. UBC loop times has also been thoroughly studied, which is crucial for efficiency and how much aluminium the system is locked into the recycling system. Increase awareness in sorting of metal packaging, informational material has been created to influence consumers. The film "Join Dag Otto on the journey from Kavli tube to bicycle" describes how aluminum tubes should be emptied and disposed of, and can turn into nice, new things when they are recycled correctly. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_14LPWNOXg In Work package 2 "Design for Recycling", labelling of recycling of aluminium packaging has been a focus area. Kavli's cheese tubes got new labelling was in 2019 . In 2022, Kavli has introduced a tube with 100% recycled Aluminium content. The project has also developed knowledge about what affects the recycling of aluminium packaging, especially the yield after remelting. In 2020, a collaboration was established with the design community in SINTEF and the KPN project V-ALU-E as a bridge builder between the designers' perspective and the metallurgical perspective. Here, 30 aluminium packaging were studied with regard to food residues and varnish. The studies show that the tubes contain the most food residues, compared to tins or cans. n Work Package 3 and 4 "Recycling", the aluminium fraction from collected glass & metal was tested at Hydro Holmestrand (today Speira). The tests in 2020 showed that there was too much organic material in this fraction, even after manual sorting of organic pollution. In the laboratory in Trondheim, a test method has been (further) developed that quantifies yield and quality for remelted aluminium packaging. Yield and quality can now be quantified for the various collection fractions. In 2023, the results of yield and quality from residual waste, glass and metal and the deposit system together with the Meny pilot were sent for publication in JOM. Hydro Holmestrand has also installed and tested new equipment and sensors. Throughout 2020, Metallco has carried out a comprehensive test program to recycle aluminium packaging. The results show that there are challenges with respect to high levels of some types of pollutants/elements. In 2021, trials were also carried out with pre-treatment before remelting, from a new and an old sorting facility, which gave better results. The PhD project on compaction and pre-treatment of aluminium scrap was started in 2019 and will be delivered in 2023. Work package 5 "Sustainability Analysis & Communication" has carried out a study of the aluminium packaging flow in Norway together with aluminium quality. Furthermore, environmental analysis has been carried out to compare aluminium packaging with other materials and an analysis comparing plastic-coated cardboard and steel cans for food packaging with aluminium The project has also facilitated debates about recycling content vs. recyclable, reuse vs. remelting, a topic that the industry considers very important. Alpakka is a timely project that receives requests from a number of stakeholders such as industry organisations, municipalities and other players in the value chain. Recycling of aluminium is the subject of the subject Experts in a team at NTNU and Action Recycling aimed at children in grades 5-7.

En moralsk drivkraft for å redusere avfall og spare på materialer og energi er bakgrunnen for Alpakka. Positive miljøkonsekvenser, inkludert reduserte CO2-utslipp, er en forventet effekt av tiltakene utviklet i prosjektet. Ny aluminiumemballasje er satt på markedet, innsamlingen er kartlagt og tiltak satt inn for å resirkulere med høyere metallutbytte og verdi. Dette fører til bedre omdømme, økte overskudd og flere arbeidsplasser. Prosjektet har også engasjert forbrukere ved å legge til rette for økt resirkulering og skape bevissthet om sirkulariteten til aluminiumsemballasje gjennom f.eks. Aksjon Gjenvinning. I tillegg er en PhD-kandidat og flere studenter utdannet gjennom Alpakka, noe som skaper et rekrutteringsgrunnlag for industrien.

The main objective of the Alpakka project is to establish a Norwegian flagship demonstrator for Circular Economy in practice, which will increase the aluminium packaging circularity in Norway by value-chain cooperation between collectors, food producers/packaging designers and aluminium recyclers as well as through engaging the consumers. The project aims to prevent 40.000 tonnes of aluminium from going to waste incineration yearly, corresponding to >1,5 TWh energy savings and several hundred thousand tonnes of CO2 reduction. Partners Metallco Aluminium AS and Infinitum AS will focus on increasing the aluminium packaging collection intensity by benchmarking various existing collection and sorting schemes as well as assessing new innovative approaches. Partner O Kavli AS will together with the other partners and its packaging suppliers obtain a better understanding of the recyclability of the aluminium packaging used for its food products today and subsequently develop an improved design that enables 100% recyclability by 2025. Partners Norsk Hydro ASA and Metallco AS aim to improve its recycling operation through a new sensor-based system for automated furnace charge, which could reduce emissions and energy consumption, increase yield, and enable recycling of aluminium packaging into wrought alloys. Furthermore, Metallco aims to recycle mixed aluminium packaging to cast alloys at a high yield through establishing a new recycling operation. In collaboration with Infinitum AS, Norsk Hydro ASA aims to increase the Used Beverage Cans (UBC) recycling yield by improving the UBC compaction step. NTNU and SINTEF AS will support the above activities, including a PhD project. SINTEF will take a lead role in interlinking the value chain and developing a recommendation for how to best achieve aluminium packaging circularity. Alpakka will also contribute to increased consumer awareness, as well as new jobs in both collection, design and recycling plants in Norway.

Publications from Cristin

Funding scheme:

BIA-Brukerstyrt innovasjonsarena