Since the setting up of national state-approved institutions for the recycling of packaging(*), a legal authority has the role of determining the responsibilities of each party: manufacturers, authorities and consumers.

(*) Eco-Emballages S.A. (France)
     EcoEmbes (Spain)
     FostPlus (Belgium)
     ValorLux (Luxembourg)
     Dual Deutschland System (Germany)

→     The steel life cycle

• Steel is indifinitely recyclable and recycled without losing its physical properties. As scrap, it is used to produce new steel.
•  Steel has a unique characteristic, its magnetism. It enables to collect steel with a magnet or an electro-magnet out from wastes collected by the Local Authorities.

Whether collected through the selective sorting or the incineration, steel packaging are sorted by a magnet, simply, efficiently and economically.

• Incineration with energy valorisation
In France, incineration with energy recovery cncerns about 12 million tonnes of domestic waste per annum, or 43% of the total amount of waste being processed. There exists 127 incineration units.
Waste combustion transforms solids and liquids into gas resulting in the recovery of thermal energy. This ensures a significant production of heat or electricity of a little more than a million toe (tonne oil equivalent) per annum, which represents 2% of the French energy consumption.
To give an example, the incineration of 50% of domestic waste of a town of 200 000 inhabitants enables 7000 homes to be heated or to have electricity.
Steel does not melt in incineration plants and is easily recovered in the slag by an electromagnet. A large number of incineration plants sort packaging scraps from slags, scraps which are sent to crushers in order to be clearned and adjusted to the E46 norm.

•  Kerbisde collection
The kerbside collection is remarkably developing. In France, nearly all the inhabitants sort their packaigng today. This is a success which positions France among the first sorting countries in Europe.Once sorted by the consumer, packaging (cardboard, plastic, metal, etc.) are packed in bundles, by type of metarials. For steel, no handling is necessary : recovery is done magnetically by an magnet on the sorting line.


•  Composting
The treatment of household waste by methanisation or composting allows to gather all steel packaging, once they have been separated from organic wastes.
Steel packaging are put at disposal of the filière either after they have been cleaned and twice crushed, either when coming out from the turbine.

This dot present on packaging indicates that the fillers have made a contribution to Eco-Emballages and/or to Adelphe (in France) and that they participate in financing the French recovery program of used domestic packaging.

Eco-Emballages uses such financial resources to help the regional authorities to develop the sroting and recovery of used packaging, in order to put them at disposal of material filières for recycling.

Pertner of Eco-Emballages in France to develop recycling, the Steel Flière guarantees the recovery of steel packaging according to minimal technical prescriptions set by contracts.