UBC Aluminium Scrap (Used Beverage Cans)

Mill-spec baled used beverage cans for closed-loop can sheet

Used beverage cans are the closest thing aluminium has to a closed loop, and mills that roll can sheet buy them as a raw material rather than as scrap. The reason is alloy consistency: a can body is 3004 and the lid is 5182, and the two together sit in a narrow, predictable chemistry band that lets a rolling mill return the metal to can stock with modest correction. That is worth a premium over general mixed aluminium — but only if the bale is to specification. Mill specifications are written around density, moisture and contamination: bales are contracted at a minimum density, commonly around 400–500 kg/m³, to dimensions the mill's charging system can handle, at a moisture ceiling in the low single digits, and free of steel cans, aerosol cans, plastic bottles, glass, liquid residue, lead and other loose non-ferrous metal. Aerosols matter more than their volume suggests: a pressurised can in a shredder or a delacquering furnace is a genuine hazard, and the free-of clause covering them is not boilerplate.

The economics come down to metallic recovery after the coating comes off. UBC arrives lacquered and printed, and that organic coating is burned off in a delacquering or thermal decoating step before melting; a well-prepared, dry, contaminant-free bale returns roughly 88–92% metallic recovery, while wet or dirty material loses several points and can foul the decoating line. This is why UBC prices per tonne of contained metal in practice even when it is invoiced per tonne gross, and why the moisture ceiling earns its place in the contract. We source baled, briquetted and shredded-and-decoated UBC from collection systems, deposit schemes and beverage-industry offcut streams across the Gulf, Europe, the UK and North America, arrange SGS or Intertek verification of bale density, moisture and contamination at loading, radiation scanning with certificate, and Basel Annex VII documentation where the shipment route requires it. Bales load at roughly 18–20 MT per 20ft container depending on density, on FOB, CFR and CIF terms.