A new decree on packaging waste was enforced in the Netherlands
in 2006 after 15 years of cost effective covenants between
industry and government. The decree requires that industry should
compensate municipalities for the costs of collection and recycling
of consumer packaging waste (Dutch Decree, 2006). Since then,
comprehensive measures for packaging waste management and
recycling have been promoted by the Dutch government. The ultimate
goals for the new decree and imposed measures are to reduce
the consumption of natural resources and to reduce the burden on
the environment. In light of these developments recycling of aluminum
packaging has been given a higher priority.
Aluminum recycling has long been practiced because it is easy
to reuse in high value applications and because of the energy savings.
Up to 95% of the energy used for the same amount of primary
aluminum production is saved by recycling (Kamberovic et al.,
2009; Zhou et al., 2006). The environmental benefits of aluminum
recycling are also convincing. Only 5% of the CO2 is produced compared
to the production of virgin aluminum, and even less when
the complete global cycle including mining and transport is considered
(International Aluminum Institute, 2007).
According to estimates from 2008, 17% of the aluminum used in
Europe goes into packaging materials (European Aluminum Association,
2009), which constitutes the third largest use for aluminum.
With the growth in aluminum packaging consumption the interest
in its recycling has grown too. The Netherlands has a wide aluminum
recycling infrastructure that covers both voluntary collection
and scraps separation from MSWI bottom ashes. These two recycling
routes also take the dominant position in the Netherlands.
The efficiency of a bottom ash aluminum separation technique
can be determined only when the maximum achievable recovery
is known, i.e. the weight ratio of the metal in the concentrated
scraps and the total amount in the input waste. This requires knowledge
of either the composition of the bottom ashes and related input
waste, or of the composition of the input waste and the
occurring incineration losses. In this study both the composition