The United States discards more than USD 1 billion worth of aluminium cans into landfill each year even as it pays record prices to import the metal, according to Greyparrot, the London-based developer of AI-powered waste intelligence. The company says the lost cans represent about 11 million megawatt-hours of wasted energy annually.
Data from Greyparrot’s Analyzer systems running above the sorting line at Circular Services’ Sunset Park material recovery facility (MRF) in Brooklyn, New York, shows that 89 per cent of aluminium is recoverable once it reaches the belt. The facility processes roughly 91,000 cans per day—about 514 tonnes per year—and recovers nearly nine in ten of the cans that cross its sorting lines.
Greyparrot says its findings, timed for Climate Week NYC (20–27 September), underscore the disparity between scrutiny over AI data centre electricity use and the far larger energy burden of primary aluminium production. Citing research from the Aluminum Association and the Can Manufacturers Institute, the firm notes the US landfilled USD 1.2 billion of aluminium in 2023, with 61 billion of the 107 billion cans shipped ending up in landfill—a 43 per cent recycling rate, the lowest in decades.
The US continues to import aluminium for products ranging from beverage cans to cooking foil, even as prices rise amid tariffs. Greyparrot points to 2025 trade data showing USD 26.5 billion of aluminium imports, with net imports covering around 60 per cent of US supply.
Recycling aluminium requires about 95.5 per cent less energy than producing primary metal from ore, according to the International Aluminum Institute—meaning every can recovered avoids the need to manufacture a new one and eases strain on power grids.