Local Authorities: Aluminium Recycling
House of Commons · Westminster Hall · 1 Sep 2026 · 15 speeches · Official Report
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...
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?
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...
As a Kent MP, I am consistently amazed at how rubbish the Reform leadership of Kent county council is, but of particular note is the fact that when Reform came in, Kent was going to be the flagship for its DOGE, which is about saving loads of money. Does my hon. Friend know whether the council got on to that and renegotiated the contract? Are there any other options? Did it look into this? Can she tell me more about her interactions with Kent county council?
No, Kent county council has probably done absolutely nothing. In a moment, I will give my hon. Friend an example of where a council has changed hands-control changed hands and the council did a really brilliant job. There is money to be had and, when councils are up against it trying to provide for adult social care, children’s social care and, frankly, every flipping pothole, it is amazing that they do not get on and tune into this. County councils are not alone in that income discrepancy. It happens in unitary authorities, too: South Gloucestershire council made £500,000 and one of my own councils, North Somerset, made £400,000, but North Lincolnshire made absolutely nothing. Doncaster city council made £300,000, but Coventry city council and Leicester city council made nothing. Another interesting example is that the Labour-led Nottingham city council made an impressive £300,000 from the sale of its aluminium, but the Reform-led Nottinghamshire county council, which serves three times the population of the city itself, made absolutely nothing. Something went awry there. According to the Local Government Association, aluminium cans are worth some £54 million per year to English councils. If the responses I have received to my FOI questions are anything to go by, that seems to be a sizeable underestimate. I therefore want to return to this question of commercial sensitivity. I understand that contracts between councils and waste management companies can contain some...
I thank the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) for setting the scene. The hon. Lady has done the House a favour in highlighting an issue that maybe not many of us were totally aware of-I know that I was not, until I did some research in Northern Ireland. I will have a specific request for the Minister, as I always do. The hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills spoke directly about our environmental responsibilities, our industrial potential and the unique challenges faced by local authorities, and I wish to speak about the situation in Northern Ireland. I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate, because when we talk about a circular economy, as she did, we must ensure that no part of this United Kingdom is left spinning its wheels in isolation. I must remind the House of a fundamental structural difference. The 11 councils in Northern Ireland, including my own superb Ards and North Down council, are different animals compared with local authorities across Great Britain. They do not control schools or roads; their responsibilities are different. Instead, waste management and environmental health sits at the absolute pinnacle of their frontline responsibilities. It is one of the largest items on their balance sheets. When waste policy fluctuates, our local councils feel the shockwaves immediately. Our councils have worked hard. According to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs in Northern Ireland, our municipal recycling rates sit...
It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair today, Mr Twigg. I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt), on securing this important debate, her excellent speech and her continued advocacy on the issue. The Liberal Democrats are committed to delivering a circular economy where value is kept in the system, not thrown away-one that maximises the recovery, reuse, recycling and remanufacturing of products and that cuts costs for consumers and businesses, reducing exposure to volatile commodity prices, protecting the environment and creating new economic opportunities. Aluminium is one of the success stories of the circular economy and has an important role to play in this cycle. Aluminium can be recycled indefinitely without quality loss. Cans can be recycled and back on supermarket shelves within 60 days. Some 75% of all the aluminium ever produced is still in use today. Reprocessing aluminium uses 95% less energy and 90% less carbon than primary manufacturing. Aluminium is a critical mineral and recognised as such by both the UK Government and NATO. Reprocessing it domestically protects the broader UK supply chain, supporting defence, construction and green energy infrastructure. However, the supply chain is increasingly vulnerable, with scrap aluminium being exported to Asia and the US, while our domestic reprocessing capacity has fallen. UK and EU reprocessing of UK scrap packaging fell from 83% in 2021 to...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I congratulate the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) on securing this important debate, and I thank her for the considerable work that she has done to examine how aluminium is collected, recycled and ultimately reprocessed across the country. We know that this is a significant issue. In 2024, 287,000 tonnes of aluminium waste was generated in the UK, of which only 54.7% was recycled. Across its different uses, the aluminium industry contributes an estimated £9.4 billion to the UK economy, supporting sectors all the way from packaging to car manufacturing, energy infrastructure and defence. Of course, the Government have rightly recognised aluminium as a critical material. Aluminium, as has been referenced, is one of the most valuable materials in the household recycling stream, and it is therefore vital that councils have a clear understanding of what they are collecting, what the material is worth and what happens to it when it leaves their possession. If neighbouring local authorities are receiving dramatically different returns from comparable aluminium material, as has been rightly pointed out by the hon. Member and others, why is that the case? It would be very interesting to know whether DEFRA and the Minister are looking at the scale of those differences nationally, as such disparities have been raised throughout the debate. This is also a matter of public confidence. Residents are...
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I welcome all hon. Members back to Westminster Hall; it is good to start with a debate where there is much agreement. I thank the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills (Tessa Munt) for securing the debate, and I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to the previous Minister for Nature at the Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry East (Mary Creagh). She did so much to progress the reforms I will go on to mention, including the deposit return scheme, which is of clear relevance to today’s debate-it will play a vital role in increasing the capture of drinks containers, improve the quality of material collected for recycling, and reduce litter. I am a huge supporter of the deposit return scheme, and I will continue that work and her legacy. I recognise the long-standing interest of the hon. Member for Wells and Mendip Hills in this issue. I was reading about how she has been collecting aluminium cans herself and using that for local charity, which is a brilliant idea and such a nice way to reduce litter in the local area and raise money for charity. We should think about the principle of such materials being viewed as valuable resources; I wholeheartedly agree with that. I also agree with the comments the hon. Lady made about fraud in the system. She will be aware that, only a couple of weeks ago, the Prime Minister made a big announcement about cracking down more on waste crime. I went to visit...
Half the problem is that councils often think they are doing the right thing, and they have put something in their contract that says everything needs to be recycled in the UK. It goes back to my point of how to define recycling. There are problems all the way along the chain. If a waste management company can say, “Yes, we have recycled everything,” because it has put everything into a facility, separated it and sorted it, and the council is happy to accept that, then something has to change.
Absolutely. We need to keep building on the reforms we have introduced and make things simpler and more transparent for everyone. I completely take the point that local people need faith. If someone is living near an aluminium recycling factory, they will be really incentivised to recycle all their aluminium. I will raise the point with the MHCLG Minister about how we can encourage councils to be more transparent. Before I move on to the next point, I want to address the points from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who raises a serious issue. It is great that recycling rates in his area are at 50%, which is really impressive, but I recognise the point he makes about how easily aluminium can be recycled and, if that material is collected, how quickly it can be recycled. DEFRA officials will meet and work with officials in Northern Ireland on the implementation of the deposit return scheme and see how we can support them to be as successful, if not more successful, than here on the mainland. Lots of Members raised concerns about exports and what we are doing about them. Legitimate exports of waste for recovery are permitted when they comply with domestic and international controls. Reprocessors and exporters must be accredited by the relevant regulator. Hon. Members have heard me mention the packaging waste recovery note reforms as well. Where the UK cannot recycle materials economically, exports help those materials to be recycled rather than sent to landfill or...
As I explained, one place I went to was Warrington. It is clear that next year that plant, Novelis, will be able to take all our cans, for example-we do not need to think about the other bits of aluminium that there are around the place. That is a Government-funded expansion, and it is brilliant. Can we not do something that stops this stuff going abroad on the basis that it is a critical mineral?
Absolutely. Our aim is for 65% of municipal waste to be recycled, and 67% of aluminium packaging. The hon. Lady mentions Novelis, which is the leading aluminium producer and recycler, and it has committed, as I think she was alluding to, £66.5 million to upgrading its aluminium recycling plant. One of the things we are hearing is that the changes we are making through the deposit return scheme-the higher-quality collection of aluminium because of the way the scheme works-mean that recyclers are looking to expand and do a lot more, which is fantastic because that is creating highly skilled jobs in those areas. I have already mentioned some of the other reforms: extended producer responsibility, simpler recycling and the deposit return scheme. Industry estimates that those three different reforms will underpin £10 billion of investment in recycling, with new sorting and processing facilities, and will create 25,000 jobs. Those are jobs here in the UK-UK jobs for people in this area-creating and supporting growth in every postcode, which is exactly what the Prime Minister is talking about. That is really quite exciting, and it is because of those three reforms introduced by this Government. Aluminium demonstrates exactly why the transition to a circular economy is not some academic theory, but something that matters to us all. Capturing that valuable resource gives us the opportunity to reduce waste, lower emissions and strengthen industrial supply chains. That is good for...
I thank the Minister for her summary and her wind-up speech. I will give her a copy of my questions -I think she may have them already-and ask her to consider writing to me with the detail, because this is so important and so good for the UK that we cannot miss the opportunity. I would be hugely in favour of us getting to the point-next year, the year after or any time in the future-where we are not sending our aluminium by any means whatsoever to places such as China and the US, because it is not good for the UK. We can do it here. We should keep it here and use it again here. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered aluminium recycling and local authorities.
Sitting adjourned.