IT was the hottest July day ever and a fitting day to look at the hottest job in town.

The temperature was nearly 36 degrees last Wednesday but the furnace at Novelis recycling plant in Latchford was around 1,000 degrees.

The workers can't slum it with shirts and shorts they have to wear visors, helmets and heavy cotton suits to protect themselves against molten metal splashes.

"I don't know who could have a hotter job I suppose there must be someone!" said employee Adrian Ashby from Great Sankey.

"But winters are alright. It's got the biggest central heating in Warrington."

To enter the work place, you go from stunning sunshine to a dark and dusty mechanical world.

Sweat pours on to your forehead and stung your eyes.

Forklift trucks use lights to see through the gloom and feed cans on to conveyor belts.

These are shredded by 1,000 horsepower metal hammers into coin-size pieces and fed into the furnace the heat can be felt like a curtain up to 50 yards away.

The liquid aluminium, which stayed a silver colour, ispoured into three pits around 10 metres deep.

After around three hours of water-cooling, the vast, 27-tonne ingots are hauled out each one containing around one-and-half million cans.

The plant, at Latchford Locks off Thelwall Lane, is the biggest dedicated can recycling plant in Europe and has the capacity to recycle every can in Britain.

Unlike paper, which can only be recycled seven times until the fibres are too worn, aluminium can be recycled indefinitely.

Britain needs to hit an overall aluminium packaging recycling rate of 38 per cent by 2008 we are currently at just 26 per cent.

Novelis recently recorded a 50 per cent year on year increase in the volume of aluminium drinks cans recycled.

sbailey@guardiangrp.co.uk