Diageo to invest in circular economy for aluminium

Funding to establish the British Aluminium Consortium for Advanced Alloys (BACALL) is to come from Diageo.

BACALL is a collective of industry experts who will create a circular economy for aluminium in the UK and will be funded by the firm.

Diageo will build a plant to roll out more than enough aluminium for over 400 million cans of Guinness and pre-mixed Gordon’s and tonic, with an advanced aluminium recycling and manufacturing plant.

This will keep the recycling of aluminium in the UK.

Diageo has been working with BACALL since 2021 when Diageo jointly funded a feasibility study with the UK Government into whether and how a large-scale circular economy strategy could be adopted across the aluminium sector tailored to the UK.

Geoff Scamans, Professor of Metallurgy at Brunel University comments, ‘Aluminium has the potential to be zero carbon, but the entire supply chain needs to see a dramatic reduction in emissions. The UK currently exports much of its aluminium scrap, yet at the same time, imports nearly all aluminium sheet. By changing this, we should see a significant carbon footprint reduction. I applaud Diageo and BACALL for beginning this process.’