THIS week in Yester Years, we are looking back at the history of one of Warrington’s best known firm.

Now known as Novelis after a deal in the mid 2000s, Alcan opened its massive recycling facility in Latchford Locks in the early 1990s.

The firm also teamed up on the popular Keep Warrington Tidy campaign.

The firm now employs almost 200 people as the UK’s largest buyer of used aluminium cans.

Warrington Guardian:

The can-to-can recycling plant has enough capacity to recycle nine billion cans each year while globally, the company recycles more than 70 billion used cans annually.

Cans can be recycled over and over with no loss of quality, irrespective of colour or design.

Novelis takes in material from local authorities and commercial outlets in the UK and imports some tonnages from Nordic countries. These are processed at Warrington where they are shredded, decoated and melted into an ingot which is transported to Germany by road and train. In Germany the ingot is used for rolling into a sheet for can-makers.

Warrington Guardian:

Warrington Guardian:

The plans for the new plant