Recycling is a fancy word for re-using. Anything you can re-use is not wasteful. Aluminum can be endlessly re-melted with no change in its strength or composition so recycling this metal is cheaper and easier than mining for more. It's a no-brainer.
The idea is that it takes less energy to recycle aluminum that has already been refined but as it's uncertain what materials the cans have been exposed to, the cans may first need to be washed so the advantage is only if millions of people would each be conscientious with their use of the cans and it only takes one bad apple to require all to need additional processing. Also, the raw materials from mines come from limited locations where efficient means of transportation are possible whereas reclaiming recycled cans are from millions of locations so a lot more energy is required for transportation. It isn't clear if the recycling can have a positive environmental impact other than not extracting more material from ores but people are easily convinced that recycling benefits the environment regardless of whether or not it does so it's a popular greenwashing topic. In general, recycling requires every participant to be consistent in how they treat the products but as that can't be guaranteed, even though recycling may help the environment, additional measures must be taken in reprocessing the material.
An example of this is that I found a large latched canning jar not too long ago and suggested to my mother that it would be good for kimchi or pickles but she refuses to use it because it might've held gasoline, motor oil, or pesticides at some point in time. Multiply that by millions with only one being possibly abused causing you problems means all the recyclables must be treated as contaminated and that negates the advantage that you gain.
Less alumium needed to be made from ores, this means less landfills (these can be in developing countries so less is good) and it is a positve social impact if people are concerned about the environment
Aluminum recycling provides many environmental, economic and community benefits; it saves energy, time, money and precious natural resources; and it generates jobs and helps to pay for community services that make life better for millions of people.
Less landfills, less dust pollution, less traffic, and people will be happier if their town is not polluted etc..
less space taken up in our land fills
and what's one ethical or social impact of it
