Frequently Asked Questions

Aluminum food trays are made of a different alloy (and lower 'grade' of aluminium) to aluminium cans.

The trays are recycled with other aluminum scraps to produce cast items whereas cans are recycled back into cans. To recycle both trays and cans, they would need to be separated at the Materials Recycling Facility (MRF), however the MRF was not designed to achieve this.

The reprocessor, Alutrade, recycles the aluminium sorted by the MRF. Alutrade's past attempt to recycle food trays resulted in an influx of significantly contaminated items, including fast food containers full of curry and foil still wrapped around sandwiches. Food contamination causes health and safety issues for the manual sorters as well as a rodent problem when dirty items are transported and stored.