The Faculty of engineering Mondragon Unibertsitatea collaborates with the Alininfinitum initiative to meet the challenge of recycling 2000 aluminium cans.
The Faculty of engineering Mondragon Unibertsitatea collaborates with the Alininfinitum initiative to meet the challenge of recycling 2000 aluminium cans.
The Faculty of engineering Mondragon Unibertsitatea collaborates with the Alininfinitum initiative to meet the challenge of recycling 2000 aluminium cans.
Several aluminium and recycling companies have joined forces to raise awareness of the importance of recycling aluminium cans. The Polytechnic School has joined the initiative and will collect the cans in machines provided by the Alinfinitum initiative.
An aluminium can takes 60 days from the time it reaches the yellow container until it returns to the shelves. What is the industrial process that is followed in all that time? That was the key to the talk given to the first year engineering students at Mondragon Unibertsitatea in relation to the Alinfinitum campaign recently launched at the Polytechnic School. Knowing the process behind the gesture of throwing a can into the bin may be the key to increasing people's commitment to this recycling gesture.
Recycled aluminium retains the same properties as primary aluminium, but is much cheaper and has a much lower environmental impact. It is therefore not surprising that cans are the most recycled beverage containers in the world. They also have the highest rate of closed-loop recycling, which is when the product is recycled for reuse with the same use as the first product. This results in 75% of the cans currently on the market being recycled.
After being collected, separated and crushed, the aluminium cans go through a process called delacquering. Carried out in industrial furnaces of enormous dimensions, it consists of removing any solid surface layer (lacquer, paint, plastic...) by continuous thermal pyrolysis to obtain clean parts ready for melting, which improves metallic efficiency. This makes it possible to obtain better quality aluminium for future use.
The challenge to students and workers
The campaign is promoted by companies such as Bews & Roll, Hydro, Egile, Reduxo or Insertec, among others, and consists of recovering used aluminium cans in a specific machine. Students and staff who consume aluminium cans in the social centres, canteens, etc. will be able to deposit them in specific machines provided by Alininfinitum and get points for this gesture.
It is a 3-month campaign that will allow the person who recycles the most cans to take a 2-day trip to Barcelona and visit the Reduxo facilities.
Commitment to sustainability
This challenge is part of the Mondragon University Polytechnic School's strategy to reduce its carbon footprint and environmental impact. Raising community awareness is one of the fundamental pillars, as well as the implementation of actions that encourage people to change their habits towards more sustainable gestures.