Major beverage packager Ball Corp. reported lower proportions of recycled aluminum in its packaging for 2025 in several key markets, despite gains in Europe, the Middle East and Asia (EMEA), according to its annual report.
Globally, 74% of aluminum used in Ball’s beverage packaging came from recycled sources, unchanged from the previous year. However, North and Central America fell to 72%, 3 points lower than in 2024, and South America fell by 5 points on the year to 73%. EMEA rose to 77%, 8 points higher on the year.
By 2030 the company aims to have 85% recycled content in the aluminum used for its beverage cans, bottles and cups. In 2025, the Colorado-based company shipped 111.9 billion units of aluminum packaging globally.
“Increasing recycled content is one of Ball’s most effective levers for reducing the carbon intensity of our products,” the company said in the report.
The company also is working with industry partners toward a 90% global recycling rate for aluminum beverage containers. The rate is currently at 75%, according to the 2025 Eunomia Global Beverage Recycling Dataset report, which was commissioned by the International Aluminium Institute’s Global Beverage Can Circularity Alliance, of which Ball Corp. is a member.
In 2025 the company recycled 355,317 metric tons of scrap metal, higher by 3.5% on the year.
Packaging Design
Ball is also working on product design to enable recycling, including a collaboration with industry partners and the European Aluminum Packaging Group (EAPG) to develop a can end using an alternative alloy that accommodates a high recycled content.
The goal is to raise recycled content for can ends to similar levels as for can bodies, the company said.
In Europe, Germany’s Beiersdorf this month announced all aerosol cans for its personal care products – such as Nivea men’s deodorant spray – produced by Ball in Europe are made of 100% post-consumer recycled aluminum.
Bolstering education, collection and end markets
In a partnership with Denver’s Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, Ball reached its goal in April 2025 of recycling 3 million aluminum cups, cans and bottles during the 2024-2025 NBA and NHL seasons. The RecyClaw, Ball Arena’s interactive recycling claw machine, gamifies aluminum recycling and helps shape consumer habits.
Other efforts to support recycling included sponsorship of the Smart Flex Project at music festivals along the Adriatic coast. Ball, Coca-Cola and Garden Brewery in Zagreb, Croatia, sponsored programs at music festivals in the Adriatic region that featured heart-shaped metal cages equipped with a real-time validation system developed by French nonprofit Solagro, along with mobile backpack units and point-of-sale (POS) terminals that enabled on-the-go collection.
Attendees depositing cans received printed slips representing micro-donations to local nonprofits supporting vulnerable groups.
In another partnership, Ball and customer Ambev – the largest brewer in Latin America and a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch InBev – cosponsored the first joint pilot tested through the Accelerator Program, a global initiative of more than 100 labs that connects startup firms with brand owners to address supply chain and environmental challenges. The project worked to collect and commercialize recyclables from Ambev’s POS systems, while optimizing collection routes by linking waste pickers with recyclers.
The project found that scaling the initiative requires establishing shared collection routes and increasing aluminum recovery per point of sale. “These findings underscore the high post-consumer value of aluminum and its potential to increase waste picker incomes,” Ball said in the report.
