significant contribution to reducing energy consumption and carbon footprint

The latest figures from APEAL (the Association of European Producers of Steel for Packaging) show that 66 per cent of steel packaging is recycled in Europe with strong growth recorded across the continent. That amounts to over 2.5 million tonnes of food and drinks cans and other steel containers being recycled in the last year. This prevented 4.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the environment - the equivalent to taking 2 million cars off the road.

Last year, recycling continued to grow throughout Europe rising by 5% from the 2005 total. In 2006 the top performers were Belgium and Germany with 93% and 89% of steel packaging recycled respectively. Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands follow closely behind, recycling over 80% of their steel containers.

The trend towards increased recycling for steel packaging is confirmed in Central and Eastern Europe: Latvia, Poland and the Czech Republic have all boosted their recycling performance by between 34 per cent and 50 per cent .

The UK and Denmark improved upon their recycled tonnage of the previous year by between 10 and 15 per cent . Meanwhile, Spain and Portugal recorded encouraging growth of 5 and 10 per cent respectively.