Bonch Aluminum contributes to economy and environment through aluminium recyling

Ethiopia is striding in consistence economic growth by scoring a double digit for a decade. For this achievement, sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and service played crucial role. The real state and housing development are developing in the capital city and other towns of Ethiopia. The rapid development of the sector has created value chain to integrate input suppliers.

Bonch Aluminum Works Private Limited Company is one of the companies that produce input materials for the construction industry. It produces aluminum materials by recycling used products and supply to the local markets for using in buildings windows and doors.

Ato Biruk Haile, an architect by profession, is the owner and the managing director of the company. According to him, he made a feasibility study and identified the high demand of aluminum items in the building construction sector. The company has established the recycling factory at Akaki Kality sub city and created job opportunities for 600 citizens and its registered capital is now 500 million Birr.

Along with adding economic value, using recycled material also encourages promotion of environmental sustainability which the nation has highly been promoting.

According to Biruk, iron doors and windows have very short duration and are vulnerable to rust and damage. Though the construction cost is relatively cheap for iron doors and windows, the maintenance cost is expensive. Taking these into consideration, many building owners are removing their iron materials from their estates and replacing it with aluminum. On the other hand, the maintenance cost of buildings made up of aluminum materials is relatively cheap and maintenance cost is low. These and other factors which are contributing towards high demand of aluminum materials in the market.

To keep the production rate consistent, the company must get sufficient raw materials regularly. Bonch Aluminum established strong relation with stake holders which supply dumped aluminum materials. The purchasing and removing waste materials department of the government plays considerable role in this regard.

It supplies waste materials to the company in a fair price. Another stake holder associated with the company is Metal and Engineering Technology Corporation that provides raw materials which will be recycled to manufacture new products.

The company utilizes cutting age machines imported from China for refining raw materials and designing new products. Almost 90 percent of the raw material are obtained from local sources and only 10 percent of the input used for aesthetic values are imported from abroad.

Bonch Aluminum works produces 15 tons of aluminum daily and 450 tons monthly and 13500 tons annually and as compared to the nation's demand, it is very small. The annual demand of aluminum rose to 60 thousand tonnes. And there is big gap between supply and demand. In order to close the gap, large amount of aluminum sheets are imported from abroad. He expects more such endeavors to come up in near future.