City of York Council has signed up to a scheme that promises to grow a fruit tree in Malawi for every tonne of aluminium drinks cans recycled over the next two years.

This means that the more York residents recycle, the more trees will be grown.
 
Recycling aluminium is 20 times more efficient than making it from the raw material, bauxite, so recycling saves massive amounts of energy and will also help reach the target of growing 85,000 trees in rural Malawi.

The initiative is being run by not-for-profit organisation Alupro, in partnership with British charity Ripple Africa, in a bid to tackle deforestation, improve nutrition and, as crop volumes improve, establish new businesses for fruit drying and juicing.   

About half the new trees - producing guava and paw paw fruits -  will be grown from seed in 75 existing nurseries.  The remainder will be high-value grafted fruit trees, which will be produced in new greenhouses at the charity’s base on Lake Malawi and then sold to individuals and small community businesses.  

Erin Gardner, waste minimisation officer for the council, said: “This is a very exciting development for the area, tackling three of the main problems that people face - poverty, nutrition and deforestation. Growing high-value trees means that they will not be chopped down for firewood, which is a major cause of deforestation and leads to poor soil and crop failure, and then more woodland is cleared to grow food.”

The programme runs alongside an initiative to encourage the coppicing of quick-growing trees for firewood, and the production of clay stoves that reduce the number of trees each family needs from 120 a year to 40.  

The potential for the project to make a real difference to building a sustainable future is enormous.   At the moment the only improved fruit trees in the area  -  such as mango, orange and lemon  -  are imported in very small numbers from South Africa. Combining a source of good fruit tree stock with training at Ripple Africa’s demonstration nursery is going to help a lot of people.

Erin Gardner added: “All people have to do to make sure this happens is to recycle every single aluminium drinks can they can get their hands on. The great thing to remember is that the more aluminium cans you recycle, the more fruit trees will be grown.”