Figures of how much foil is used each year seem to vary depending on the source. One lists it as 600,000 tons per year in the US but it is 20 year old data. It is probably a small percentage of the overall aluminum production but I doubt very much gets recycled.
To recycle foil it is supposed to be clean and crumbled into a palm sized ball. I really wouldn’t think a bit of grease would affect it as it would just burn off during melting. Thin aluminum like foil and cans have to be added to an already melted pool as they can burn up when exposed to a flame.
Does anyone actually recycle it? By the way I learned that you are not supposed to flatten aluminum cans anymore as they are more difficult to identify in the general trash stream. So much for all those can crushers and hours of work by the Boy Scouts and school groups.
I’m gonna wrap my cans with foil. That should do it.
If foil can be cleaned well I would likely reuse it already, and I do with most foil pans until they won’t come clean in the dishwasher. I don’t know what recycling companies do with foil. I mean the places that collect and package reusable materials to ship to smelters. They might be putting it in a different pile, or maybe even throwing it away because it’s not profitable for them.
Aluminum is recycled with great success, mainly from cans, but also large aluminum pieces from window and door frames, industrial left overs, and old car engines and other parts. The wasted foil probably doesn’t make a dent in the percentages compared to those things. Unlike plastics the metal is easily to melt down and re-use. Foil, like soda cans, are made from almost pure aluminum so can be easily used for non-critical applications unlike a car engine which would be made of a more complex alloy.
I think the reason that recycling places want it to be clean is just that they don’t want it smelling or attracting pests. It won’t matter once it goes into the melter, but until that time, it’s stored somewhere.
Food grease and oil is completely and totally insignificant for household aluminum recycling in the furnace. Keeping it clean is for other purposes as pointed out.
I reuse foil where possible and then rinse and recycle it when it’s gotten too crumpled or torn to use again. It makes me feel good because I know our city actually recycles it. I put all the other potentiality recyclable items in too, as instructed by the solid waste department, but I know that #5 plastic is going to end up in a landfill.
There is foil recycling in a collection point in the nearest large town to me - I collect it up and take it there when I am already going there for some other reasons (there’s a collection point for laminated multi-material recycling too, like tetra cartons and pringles tubes).
Back at the old house, the local foil recycling facilities disappeared during the pandemic and never came back. To continue recycling it, I used to roll it up tight and stuff it inside an aluminium drink can, then put that in the regular recycling.
We put foil packages (e.g.: bags which once contained potato chips) in our building’s recycling bins but most everything else is too far gone (grease, etc.) to be worthwhile.
I doubt it. Metal cans and lids are separated out in a two stage process - iron and steel by simple magnets and aluminium with an eddy current separator (which will not discriminate an aluminium can stuffed with aluminium foil).