My Factory Visits

I spent a day last week in the cold and rainy North visiting a numbers of factories involved in the processing of the drinks can. It was a long day, but a great way to see the loop of how a can is made, filled and then recycled, to possibly become a can again.

The first stop was the Novelis recycling plant in Warrington. We saw the huge bales of cans, which were then melted down into a huge vat of molten liquid, that looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings. It was very important that we didn’t touch anything. We then saw how the aluminium was set into huge ingots, which were then transported to Germany by river for rolling.

Next was the Rexam factory, which makes the cans that supply the Coca-Cola Enterprise factory just next door in Wakefield – we actually saw the ‘hole in the wall’ that allows this to happen. The scale of production in both of these factories was immense and it incredible to see the number of cans in production.

All in all, a whistle stop tour, but actually being there made the whole process so much more vivid and easier to comprehend (and the hats and goggles that we had to wear were so attractive!).