It’s a deeply personal debate. Scruncher vs folder. Which way is best? Which side are you on?
I’m here to tell you without doubt, you 100%, absolutely, MUST be a scruncher – when it comes to aluminium foil recycling.
If we don’t scrunch our aluminium foil before putting it into our yellow top recycling bin then it acts just like paper, all floaty and light. But why is that so bad?
Why folding is a no no.
When our recycling turns up at the sorting centre (or MRF – Material Recovery Facility) it goes through a series of high-tech automated machines which sort our rubbish into recyclable materials such as paper, metal, glass and plastic.
Paper is extracted from our recycling because it is light with a large surface area. The machine looks like a giant clothes dryer, the paper floats to the middle and is essentially sucked out.
When our aluminium foil is flat or folded it acts just like paper, floaty and light (video of our home experiment at the bottom of this post). It then gets sorted like paper, never makes it to the metal sorting station and ultimately contaminates the paper recycling. When it is scrunched, air can’t blow it around as easily, it stays on the side of the big clothes dryer and makes it to the correct station.
I got to see this in action on a Year 4 excursion to our local MRF. I tell you, I was so intrigued with the whole process I almost forgot to keep a count of the kids. Almost.
How big do I scrunch?
The bigger the scrunch the better, so try to save your foil until you can scrunch it into a ball about the size of your fist.
With the easter weekend and lots of foil wrapping coming our way very soon, regardless of what side of the debate you started on, be a scruncher!
FACT: Recycling aluminium saves 95% of the energy and water it takes to smelt new aluminium.
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