Scrap aluminium recycling ‘rip off’ uncovered as MP claims councils ‘misled’ and dropping out on thousands and thousands
EXCLUSIVE: MP Tessa Munt is calling for an overhaul of the recycling system, which involves 14 billion cans a year, saying councils are being ‘misled’ and are losing out on millions
MP Tessa Munt says counsils are being ‘misled’ and losing out on millions to spend in their communities(Image: Dave Nelson)
An MP claims to have uncovered an extraordinary “rip-off” scam involving the recycling of scrap aluminium. Now Tessa Munt is calling for a complete overhaul of the recycling system – which involves a staggering 14 billion cans a year. She said that councils are being “misled” and are losing out on millions of pounds to spend in their communities each year. Two next door councils which had different recycling policies saw one benefiting by £1m a year and the other getting absolutely nothing. And some authorities who should be recycling here in the UK are sending it to China – which means a foreign rival is financially benefiting.
She discovered that while aluminium has been designated a critical mineral there is still not enough being done to keep it in the UK. Speaking to the Mirror she said: “ For far too long profit driven scrap merchants have sold our aluminium abroad without any consideration for the national interest. If the critical mineral strategy is to work the Government needs to clamp down on this.”
She said: “I realised that the governments of the past 15 years had very little idea what was happening to all the UK’s scrap aluminium. When I was told something like a billion pounds worth of aluminium is being sold abroad for recycling and reprocessing each year, and at the same time we’re spending £5 billion importing aluminium, I thought this is bonkers. I decided it was time to have a good look into this.”
It’s certainly a subject close to her heart. For the last 25 years, Ms Munt has collected scrap aluminium from all over her Somerset constituency. She stores it in her shed at home until she’s collected a significant amount, enough to sell to the local scrap company. Then she donates the money to local charities.
In her inquiries she found councils across the country are responsible for collecting and recycling all 14 billion aluminium cans we use each year. Earlier this year she sent Freedom of Information requests to every council in the country. She is currently analysing all the information as it comes in as she prepares for a debate she’s asked for in the House of Commons, but what she’s learnt so far has shocked her.
She said: “It’s becoming very clear to me that a great many of our councils are being misled and, in some cases, royally ripped off when it comes to the money available from recycling their aluminium.”
Unbelievably, she’s found identical councils, sometimes next door to each other, where one makes over a million pounds a year from recycling its aluminium cans in the UK, while the other makes nothing. She also found councils who specifically require their aluminium to be recycled in the UK, but it ends up in China.
She said: “It’s insane that councils all over the country are losing valuable income from this. They need to take better control over what’s happening to their scrap aluminium.”
Munt arranged to visit the giant Novelis recycling complex in Warrington, Cheshire, to try and understand the whole process. Plant Manager, Alan Sweeney said: “We currently recycle 200,000 tonnes of aluminium, around 8 billion cans, each year, but when our expansion is completed next year we will be able to recycle every aluminium can the UK produces annually.”
Tessa saw first-hand how scrap aluminium cans are turned into clean reusable 27 tonne ingots of recycled aluminium and shipped out of the Novelis complex to be turned back into cans and back on the shelves in 60 days. She said: “What was most impressive was seeing the state of the art £75 million expansion of the Novelis works going on, expansion partly funded by the Government.
She added: “It’s economic madness that nothing is really being done to stop aluminium being sent to China and the Far East, when it should be coming right here and to other UK recycling facilities.”
