News

ALTEMIRA Holdings Co.,Ltd. the holding company of the ALTEMIRA Group, announced it will invest approximately 500 million yen in a recycling plant for aluminum cans operated by MA Aluminum Corporation. This investment will increase the plant’s capacity to process UBCs（Used Beverage Cans） by about 15%.

The ALTEMIRA Group is an integrated aluminum company consisting of manufacturers of aluminum cans, Sheet, foil, and extruded products. In the aluminum can manufacturing business, we promote a horizontal recycling business in which UBCs are recycled to produce new aluminum cans, and the Group conducts an integrated process from collection of UBCs (ALTEMIRA Techno Solutions), pretreatment, melting, casting, and rolling to manufacture aluminum can sheets (MA Aluminum), and manufacturing of aluminum cans (ALTEMIRA Can). About 40% of our aluminum can products are made from recycled aluminum materials at this plant.

Using recycled aluminum from UBCs can reduce energy consumption by 97% compared to producing new aluminum from bauxite. Using recycled aluminum is a step towards building a sustainable society in terms of the circular economy and carbon neutrality.

This time, we will upgrade the UBC crusher and the roasting furnace at the aluminum can recycling plant. The crusher breaks down compressed UBCs (used beverage containers) into smaller pieces for easier transportation. In addition to improving processing capacity, the upgraded crusher will be able to feed compressed UBCs under high pressure. Previously, these UBCs had to be processed separately (scheduled for renewal in February 2026). The roasting furnace thermally decomposes paints and other materials printed on aluminum cans. It was upgraded in January 2025 to improve processing capacity. These upgrades will increase the plant’s production capacity of recycled aluminum by about 15%, to approximately 50,000 tons per year.

The process of producing can material coils and aluminum cans from the UBC recycling process is available on the YouTube channel “Process X” (released in October 2023, approx. 21 min.).