Europe’s recycled aluminium industry is an important component of the global secondary aluminium supply chain, with Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom (UK) representing key national markets. Production across the European region stood at nearly 6 million tonnes in 2023, supported by established scrap recovery systems, industrial recycling capacity and demand for recycled metal. Russia also contributes to the regional landscape through secondary aluminium production units concentrated in several industrial centres. According to AL Circle’s analysis in its report, “ World Recycled ALuminium Market Analysis Industry Forecast ”, the four countries present different market structures, from Germany’s substantial recycling capacity and Italy’s scrap-based production to the UK’s organised...
According to SMM survey statistics, the operating rate of the secondary aluminium alloy industry in September was 35.0 per cent, up 3.1 percentage points M-o-M but down 6.7 percentage points Y-o-Y. Industry production continued its recovery trend, but the overall operating level remained below the same period last year. On the demand side, September marked the traditional peak consumption season, with downstream orders recovering from August. End-use demand from automobiles and other sectors improved marginally, but the peak season effect has yet to fully materialise. According to CAAM data, automobile production in September was 2.99 million units, up 11.4 per cent M-o-M but down 8.7 per cent Y-o-Y. NEV production was 1.814 million units, up 12.2 per cent Y-o-Y. CAAM noted that China's...
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Germany's largest aerosol can recycler Respray, a division of Remondis, has modernised and expanded its facility at Bramsche. The company claims now to have the capacity to process up to 6500 tonnes of aerosol cans every year. Some 80 000 tonnes of aerosol cans are produced annually in Germany but only 10 per cent of these are professionally recycled, according to Remondis. Around 60 per cent end up at Respray. Remondis has invested ‘heavily’ in the facility where it uses HazPak (short for ‘hazardous packaging’) - a technology supplied by the Canadian manufacturer Eko Environmental. Old aerosol cans can be dangerous as they contain traces of propellant gases such as propane, butane and dimethyl ether. These are highly inflammable and can cause an explosion if they come into contact with...
Base metal prices including price of aluminium rose further by up to INR 5 per kg in Indian non-ferrous metal market today, tracking a firming trend overseas amid increased demand from consuming industries. Traders said sentiment remained firm on the back of a firm global trend where copper surged to its highest level since early May, briefly topping USD 5,000 per tonne, on expectations that policy makers are gearing up for economic stimulus that will buoy demand materials. Aluminium sheet cutting, aluminium wire scrap and aluminium utensils scrap finished higher by INR 2 each to INR 150, INR 150 and INR 148 per kg, respectively.
A British Recycling and restoring company run by father- daughter team of David and Emily Palmer artfully restores a chunk of an aircraft body meant for scrapping. David, who has already been associated with aviation industry through his business of IT recycling, has realized that that most of the airframes which are scrapped as absolute waste can be restored into a well-engineered useful structure. His daughter Emily was doing a furniture design degree at a top London college while they decided to form a new company, Dapper Aviation and bought an old Airbus A320 from Turkish airline AtlasJet for restoration. “It was a huge leap of faith to buy our first plane,” David said in a press release, “but we’re delighted with the result.” The Aeropod is made of the original “well-engineered”...
The German company Remondis has announced that its Respray division has opened an aerosol can recycling system at its industrial recycling centre in Bramsche, Germany. Remondis says the facility, known as Hazpak, is the most modern plant of its kind in Germany. It officially opened 1 July 2016. The equipment for the new aerosol can recycling facility came from the Canadian company MacLean Engineering. Respray specialises in recycling hazardous substances, including aerosol cans. Remondis developed its Respray collection system for businesses that needed old aerosol cans or polyurethane foam containers collected from their premises on a regular basis. Remondis notes that 80,000 tonnes of aerosol cans are produced in Germany each year, with only 10 per cent being recycled. Remondis...
Constellium was chosen by Nespresso, the renowned brand for coffee connoisseurs worldwide, to participate in the recycling of used capsules as part of Second Life, an innovative project conducted in Switzerland where Nespresso is headquartered. The campaign aims at integrating sustainability across Nespresso’s value chain by giving the colored coffee capsules a new life through aluminium recycling. For Second Life, Constellium will lend its expertise in metal supply and recycling using its aluminium casting and rolling plant in Singen, Germany. The facility will be part of the transformation of the used capsules that were collected into new ones, as well as into iconic and quintessentially Swiss products that will be sold throughout the country for a limited period of time over the summer...
Republic Services in Missoula in the U.S. state of Montana, recently announced it is expanding its curbside recycling program. That should help the city boost its plastics, glass, tin, and aluminium can recycling rates. The “All-In-One” program was rolled out in May, and already roughly 400 customers have signed up for recycling services. The recyclables are sent to a sorting facility in Seattle by truck. Because broken glass presents a safety hazard to the sorters, and because it is heavy – and therefore expensive – to ship, glass still isn’t accepted in Missoula. However, customers in the new program get a 96-gallon bin and are allowed to throw everything reusable – all plastics, paper, corrugated cardboard, boxboard from cereal boxes, tin and aluminum cans – into the bin for pickup...
According to the latest Mineral Industry Surveys data published by the USGS, total aluminium recovered from scrap in April 2016 was 292,000 metric tons (t), 3 per cent less than that recovered in March but the same as that in April 2015. Of this, 164,000 t of aluminium was recovered from new scrap, 3 per cent less than the amount in the preceding month but 4 per cent more than the amount recovered in April 2015. The amount of aluminium recovered from old scrap was 129,000 t, 3 per cent less than the amount recovered in the preceding month and 4 per cent less than that in April 2015.
The organisers of ALUMINIUM 2016 have announced that the upcoming event will feature a Recycling Pavilion. In Hall 11, which primarily addresses the topics of primary production and recycling, the trade fair organisers have set up a special area with a themed pavilion where companies specialised in recycling exhibit their solutions for reclaiming aluminium scrap. The Recycling Pavilion targets scrap dealers, sorting line manufacturers, shredding plants, remelters and secondary aluminium vendors, to name but a few. So far registrations from the following exhibitors have been received for the Recycling Pavilion: • Bruker AXS Handheld (US) • Cast Aluminium (AE) • Cometel (ES) • DROSS Engineering (FR) • Gianni Mori Engineering (IT) • KMF Kärntner Maschinenfabriken (AT) • JMC Recycling Systems...
Swiss food giant Nestle's Nespresso has come up with an innovative and somewhat unexpected solution to the environmental issue created by the growing waste volume of coffee capsules that are used at the workplaces and homes. They have taken to organic vegetable farming and aluminium recycling which happen to be the two main components of the two-pronged strategy. In Singapore, Nespresso has collected and recycled its used aluminium capsules since 2012, which are then sun-dried to separate the used coffee grounds from the aluminium. For the past two years, it has also partnered with local organic produce distributor Quan Fa Organic Farm to use coffee grounds as compost for farming. Mr Matthieu Pougin, country manager of Nespresso Singapore, highlighted that Singapore is the first country...
Sustainable waste management leader Cleanaway is putting metal and plastic, especially recyclable aluminium, steel and tin wastes, back where they belong - in new generations of recycled products. Cleanaway Executive General Manager Sales and Marketing Dave Aardsma says recycling in Australia has matured to a point where it is becoming the first instinct when we are looking to throw things away. “We work with businesses all over the country to minimise landfill costs by maximising their recoverable and recyclable waste,” Mr. Aardsma said. “That means the waste you recycle with Cleanaway ends up creating new products without harming the environment.” And that applies to aluminium they recycle as well. Cleanaway offers commingled recycling as a simple, ideal solution for small businesses...
Showa Denko, its Group companies, and their cooperative companies continued to perform aluminium can recycling activity in fiscal 2015 (April 2015 - March 2016), collecting approximately 5.15 million cans: equivalent to about 83 tons of aluminium when converted at the rate of 16.2 grams of aluminium per can. Showa Aluminium Can Corporation, a consolidated subsidiary of SDK, started its aluminium can recycling activity in 1972. The activity spread across the Showa Denko Group in 2001, continuing until today. In fiscal 2015, a total of 7,956 employees, or 98.7 per cent of all Group employees in Japan, participated in the activity. Collected aluminium cans are purchased by the Group, and used mainly by Showa Aluminium Can Corporation to produce aluminium cans to contain beverages. Recycling...
More than five years ago when Dan Hannagan inherited his family landfill business in far-north Queensland, little he did realize what prospects the site held in terms of recyclability. It was just another privately owned dump in the region. Soon, Hannagan transformed the site into a recycling ground, where every waste having substantial reuse value such as aluminium, stainless steel, or copper product is sorted and recycled on site, or sent away to third-party recycling agents. Hannagan makes it a point to recycle as much metal as possible to limit the amount of it going underground. But there is little money to be made in any form of recycling, even if one owns and operates his own landfill, says Hannagan. Nevertheless, Hannagan feels obliged to do his part for the environment “as long...
Matalco, a sister company to the recycling firm Triple M Metals, headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, held the grand opening ceremony at its new secondary aluminium plant in Lordstown, Ohio. The company has been in a start-up mode since this past March, and has been producing aluminium billet. Matalco also operates a facility in Canton, Ohio, as well as a plant at its Toronto headquarters location. The company broke ground on the plant on Sept. 17, 2014 and construction started the following month. The facility, roughly 225,000 square feet in size, will primarily be consuming scrap aluminium, along with some aluminium P1020 ingot mixed in. The plant will be making aluminium billet in either log or cut-to-size billet, according to Robert Roscetti, vice president of Matalco U.S. Inc....
More than 23 million solar panels are installed in Australia and 222 gigawatts+ of PV modules are in place globally. This will present a significant business opportunity in recycling says the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). By weight, a solar panel mainly consist of aluminium, glass and silicon. More than 90 per cent of a module’s weight can be recycled into more solar panels or other items – and it can be done at a profit. Reduce, reuse, recycle are the 3R’s of sustainability. The concept applies to “green” products such as solar modules made out of aluminium and other recyclable materials as much as any other. While good quality solar panels have a lifespan of decades; they will ultimately wind up as waste. A report released earlier today by IRENA and the International...
Reverse vending machines will be installed across the municipality to help people go green, Wyndham Council, in Victoria, Australia says. The council said it will be first council to install the machines. The unusual approach will let Wyndham residents deposit plastic bottles and aluminium cans in return for vouchers to Aquapulse and other facilities. Roll out of the machines is part of the council’s environmental and waste reduction strategies. Wyndham council’s director of sustainable development Dean Rochfort said three machines would be installed for a three-year period. “The machines will be installed over the next 12 months with council currently working to determine the most suitable locations for them, based on where they will have the most impact on litter levels,” he said. Cr...
In a bid to reduce the amount of metal packaging sent to landfill, MetalMatters campaign supported by Rexam targets 79,355 households. It includes a series of leaflets, online advertising, social media posts and posters have been developed carrying the ‘make your metals matter’ messaging to educate residents on the recycling process. Two infographics will be released in May and July, illustrating metal items suitable for recycling and showcasing the infinite recyclability of aluminium. Alex Constantinides, service director public realm at Luton Borough Council, said: “We’re committed to reducing the amount of waste that is sent to landfill and look forward to working with residents to make this happen. If all 94 million aluminium cans and other metal packaging were recycled, it would...
Scrap metal processing company Upstate Shredding – Weitsman Recycling, based in Owego, New York, has been recognized by Platts, a leading independent provider of information and benchmark prices for the commodities and energy markets. The company received the Industry Leadership Award in the Scrap & Recycling category. Adam Weitsman, owner of Upstate Shredding, says he believes the award is a great honor and a testament to his company's commitment to exceptional operations and dynamic growth strategies. Weitsman was on hand to accept the award at the ceremony Thursday, May 19, in London. “This recognition is one of the top moments of my career,” he said. “To have been selected as the winner when international judges are reviewing companies, public and private, from all over the world is...
The U.S. aluminium industry purchased an estimated 763 million pounds of aluminium scrap during March 2016, according to aluminium recycling statistics published by the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of Interior, up 4.7 per cent over the March 2015 total of 728 million. USGS estimates that recovery of aluminium and aluminium alloys totalled 664 million pounds, an increase of 4.3 per cent year-over-year. Through the first three months of 2016, preliminary data indicate that recovery of aluminium from scrap totalled an estimated 1,966 million pounds, up 2.0 per cent from the 2015 YTD total of 1,927 million. U.S. exports of scrap, not included in the government’s consumption statistics, totalled 671 million pounds YTD, down 6.5 per cent from the same period in 2015. Aluminium imports of...
