Yes they can!

Students exceed expectations in the Million Cans Recycling Contest

Did you know that only 45% of aluminium beverage cans get recycled in the United States? The Million Cans Recycling Contest, born from a partnership between Scrap University Kids and the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), was designed to challenge this statistic. From October 15, 2023 to May 16, 2024, Constellium’s Muscle Shoals, Alabama location joined in this partnership by becoming champion for L.E. Willson Elementary School to aid in this mission. 

Earlier this month, CMI announced that a grand total of more than 1.3 million beverage cans were collected, exceeding the project’s goal to recycle 1 million cans. To put this in perspective, recycling this number of cans saves the amount of energy equivalent to what it takes to power a U.S. home for nearly 60 years. 

This innovative program focused on eight schools in communities where recycling rates are historically low and there aren’t any curbside recycling systems. Constellium partner L.E. Willson Elementary was represented by 55 3rd grade students and the school was able to recycle 71,750 cans total. During the school year, team members from the Muscle Shoals plant visited the school to read The Girl Who Recycled A Million Cans to students and distribute copies of the book. They also discussed the importance of recycling and how it works.

To help boost recycling efforts during the contest, Constellium provided beverages in aluminium cans and recycling containers at local events such as the Taste of Sheffield, Swampers Fun Run, and Talladega SuperSpeedway through a partnership with NASCAR and Scrap University Kids. At the Muscle Shoals plant, a large recycling receptacle from SA Recycling was designated for the contest and employees and local citizens were encouraged to add their empty aluminium beverage cans to the count. 

Beyond the benefit of keeping these empty aluminium cans out of landfills, participating schools earned valuable funding from selling the used beverage cans to local scrapyards—nearly $21,000-- which will be used to enrich their educational activities. L.E. Willson plans to use their proceeds to purchase new aluminium bleachers for their gymnasium. 

Congratulations to the winners and thank you to the participating students and staff, as well as our Muscle Shoals team, CMI, and Scrap University Kids for making this contest a success! We look forward to continuing this exciting challenge and sharing our passion for recycling with a new group of students next school year.