The next time you drink from a can, consider the incredible journey that can has been on to make it to your fridge. Aluminium – the primary material of drinks cans and many other everyday products – is widely used in manufacturing. What makes it great is that it lends itself to something called a closed loop recycling process – an infinite loop of use and reuse that makes aluminium an extremely adaptable material.

Novelis, a world leader in aluminium rolling and recycling, are investing $90 million to double its UK capacity for recycling used beverage cans (UBCs) – and at the core of that effort is Novelis Latchford UK, one of Europe’s largest UBC recycling plants.

So, what exactly is a closed loop, and how does Thamesdown Recycling fit into this incredible system of aluminium recycling?

Closed Loops and Circular Economies

In November 2024 the UK Government set up a taskforce to help them plan a circular economy strategy for England. You’ve probably heard the phrase “circular economy” before, and wondered what it means. A circular economy simply refers to materials and products never becoming waste. They are instead reused, recycled, refurbished, and remanufactured (Source: Alupro).

Aluminium is a great example of a material used in a circular economy.. When recycled, aluminium retains its original material properties, meaning nothing is degraded or lost in the process. In real terms this means that it can be used again and again in an infinite loop, minimising the need for new aluminium to be produced and never ending up in a landfill. In fact, nearly 75% of all aluminium ever produced worldwide is still in use today – it exists in a closed loop.

Aluminium does not occur naturally. It is made in a complex process in which alumina is refined from raw bauxite rock, mined from massive shallow pit mines. In contrast to this energy-intensive process, recycling aluminium requires only 5% of the energy needed to produce the material from scratch.

With the demand for aluminium across various sectors increasing, the recycling of this material is vital.

How does Thamesdown Recycling Fit in?

If you know anything about the aluminium industry, you’ve probably heard of Novelis: a leading sustainable aluminium solutions provider.  Novelis Latchford UK is Europe’s largest closed-loop recycling operation for automotive rolled products with a recycling capacity of 195,000t/y. The plant is an essential part of Novelis’ European production.

Novelis is investing $90 million to double its UK recycling capacity for UBC. The expansion will increase the facility’s recycling capacity for used beverage cans by 85kt per year, a growth of over 100%. The project is expected to begin commissioning in December 2026.

Thamesdown Recycling is an aggregation centre for Novelis in the South of England. We consolidate stock from across regions in the South of the UK and can store just over 40 loads at our site north of Swindon. Our high-capacity storage allows Novelis’ customers to continually move material off their site, avoiding storage limitations that impact their daily processes.  This provides Novelis with complete feedstock control; material can be held or shipped to various Novelis sites for processing.

We provide several checks before forwarding loads on to the processing facility. While bales are being unloaded, our trained operators conduct visual inspections of the material, assessing if it meets required standards. Loads found to be substandard – usually due to excessive contamination from other recyclable materials – are rejected or broken down at our facility and further sorted to bring them up to standard.

Each load is also tested for moisture content. Two samples of 1kg of cans are ‘baked’ at a specified temperature and set time, and the difference in weight following the process determines the level of water ingress within the bales. As baled aluminium cans are a high-value material we work to a minimal percentage allowance for moisture. Daily moisture reports and full load details are provided to Novelis.

As Novelis is preparing for expansion at their Latchford site, we are experiencing an increase in material through Thamesdown Recycling. In 2023 we handled approximately 5,158 tonnes, 2024 saw an increase of 65% to approximately 8,537 tonnes, and in January 2025 we handled 85% more aluminium compared to January 2024. We expect to handle about 12,000 tonnes in 2025. A 132% increase in two years.

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Once Novelis’ investment is complete, Novelis UK will have the capacity to recycle 100% of the used beverage cans collected under the future UK deposit return scheme, creating a local, fully circular system that will avoid the need to export UBCs from the UK.  These upgrades will result in an annual CO2e reduction of more than 350,000 tonnes for Novelis Europe.

We’re excited for the future of aluminium recycling in the UK, and how it will contribute to net zero targets and the local economy. With the introduction of the deposit return scheme planned for 2027, we’re hopeful about this infinitely recyclable material.